President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said his government will equip the Ghana Immigration Service to check the smuggling of cashew, another cash crop in the Bono Region.
The Bono East, Bono and the Ahafo regions – previously known as the Brong Ahafo region, are being transformed by cashew production.
This growth has positioned Ghana as one of the largest producers of raw cashew nuts in Africa.
Speaking to a durbar of chiefs and people of Sampa in the Bono Region as part of his tour, the President said the smuggling threatens the country’s benefit from the crop and must be stopped.
“This means that we have to equip the Immigration Service to empower them to do their work well. That way the smuggling of cashew from Cote d’Ivoire to Ghana and other items from Ghana to that country will be checked.”
President Nana Akufo-Addo in February this year launched a 10-year cashew development plan with a promise to give the country’s Agric sector a further boost.
The President said this plan seeks to improve research methods, introduce appropriate production and processing technologies, as well as develop marketing strategies along the cashew production value chain.
The production of cashew in Ghana is currently around 55,000 tonnes per annum.
The cashew industry is expected to fetch the nation US$ 2.5 billion in the next five years, Mr. Augustine Collins Ntim, a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said in June this year.
He said the government has devoted GHȼ 1 billion towards the establishment of the Tree Crop Development Authority that would regulate the cashew industry and revamp that sector to contribute significantly to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
