The Somanya Police Command in the Eastern Region is to arraign five drivers who were arrested for allegedly stealing fertilizer meant for cocoa farmers at Samarboi in the Western Region.
The five trucks carrying a total of four thousand fertilizers were arrested by the Somanya Police Command on Monday.
According to the Somanya Police Commander, DSP Isaac Otsin, the fertilizers were being transported from the Tema Harbour.
“We arrested five trucks of fertilizer with each truck containing 800 bags of fertilizer. This makes it 4000 bags in total that have been intercepted in Somanya. We have impounded them and they are at the Municipal Assembly. The smugglers are with the police and are assisting with investigations. According to them, they loaded from the Tema Harbour and were heading towards Samarboi in the Western Region. With 4000 bags of fertilizers, we need to put them before court.”
There have been recorded cases of smuggling of fertilizer, a development that negatively impedes the successful implementation of Government’s flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) program.
As a result, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has said it is intensifying measures to check and eliminate fertilizer smuggling to neighbouring and other African countries.
Let’s band together to address smuggling of fertilizers – Nana Addo
President Nana Akufo-Addo recently urged traditional leaders and Ghanaians to help nip fertilizer smuggling in the bud.
Nana Akufo-Addo has therefore appealed to traditional leaders to support the fight against the menace and expose security officials who may want to shield perpetrators of fertilizer smuggling.
“We should all understand one thing; we use taxpayers’ money to buy fertilizer and subsidise it by 50 percent in order to improve the productivity of our farmers. It is our money but we have a handful of greedy criminals who smuggle our fertilisers to Burkina Faso. I am appealing to all of you, the traditional authorities population [to help stop some of these things]. I have seen the ones that have been seized. This is not right, all of us should band together to stop the smuggling of our fertilizer to Burkina Faso.”
