RCC worried about fertilizer smuggling in UE

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga The Upper East Regional Coordinating Council is worried about fertiliser smuggling in the region and has proposed the placing of a ceiling on on the number of dealers of the product as a means of curbing the negative practice. At a meeting with stakeholders in the agriculture and agro-chemical dealers, the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Mark Woyongo said there have been reports of rising reports of some dealers and distributors conniving with smugglers to allegedly smuggle fertiliser across the borders to neighbouring Togo and Burkina Faso. He has therefore charged security agencies, Municipal and District Security Committees, Municipal and District Directors of Agriculture to immediately put in place measures to bring the practice under control. “The amount of fertiliser that has come into the region is very huge, yet day in day out, our farmers are crying that they cannot get the product. The irony is that just across our borders, one can see mounting of fertilisers as though the factory for producing the product was located in those countries”, he said. The Minister noted that the multiplicity of dealers in the region largely accounted for the bad practice and therefore tasked the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to streamline and limited the number of dealers to enhance effective monitoring. He said although the complaint of smuggling was rampant across the region, it is alarming in border districts and therefore charged the heads of the various security agencies in the region with the responsibility of checking smuggling of fertiliser across the border for sale to step up their efforts. He reiterated that fact that government is likely to withdraw the subsidy on fertiliser because we cannot subsidise the cost of fertilisers only for it to find its way across the borders. The Regional Director of Agriculture, Mr. Cletus Achaab affirmed that there are too many fertilizer dealers in the region with the Bawku municipality alone having over 67 dealers. He said in the year 2011, 182 fertilizer dealers were registered but the figure shot up to 221 in 2012. Enumerating challenges with both subsidy and block farm fertilisers in the region, Mr. Achaab said among the contributory factors was the fact that vehicles loaded with fertilisers arrive very late in the night(between 10 pm and 3 am) and this provide a conducive atmosphere for perpetuating malfeasance. He also cited inadequate staffing of all the security agencies along the border towns as well as the practice of some dealers using framers passbooks to exaggerate quantities by the farmers after giving the farmers some few bags for free as a major challenge. Another challenge, Mr. Achaab cited is the many exit points and the usage of unapproved routes by vehicles loaded with fertilisers as a cause for smuggling Mr. Achaab also expressed worry at what he described as high profile interference as hampering checking smuggling of fertiliser across the border for sale. “Claims by the security agencies that when offenders (smugglers) are caught they receive calls or threats to release them from very “important” people” He recommended that fertiliser distribution and marketing should be handled by MOFA if not in the whole country, but at least in border towns and communities especially in the Bawku, Garu, Paga, Bongo and Zebilla communities to check smuggling. Meanwhile, during the interaction, some dealers proposed that following the extent of smuggling of the product which is heavily subsidized for farmers in the country, the government should redesigned the mode of packaging for the subsidized fertilizers to distinguished it from the non subsidized ones to bring the practice of smuggling under control just was done in the case of the premix fuel -End- August 17, 2012