By Kamal Ahmed
Koforidua (E/R), July 6, GNA – Nana Akosua Kwao, Nkabomhemaa of the Ntanor community, has urged the government to revive the state farm system to enhance food security and accelerate socio-economic growth.
She made the appeal during an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Koforidua, New Juaben North Municipality, Eastern Region.
She argued that the over 14,000 prisoners across Ghana’s prisons should be allowed to farm because the current daily allowance of GH₵1.80, was insufficient to meet their basic feeding needs.
She explained that if prisoners were allowed to farm for the state and stockpile at the buffer stock, food prices on the market would likely drop, thereby boosting socioeconomic development.
“Even though the government has started planting for food and jobs, but food is still expensive, so enabling inmates to cultivate crops like corn, cassava, plantains, and others will help,” she said.
She also stated that inmates contributed nothing to the country, even though the government spent large sum of money on their upkeep.
She noted that if prisoners were permitted to cultivate foodstuffs, both the convicts and the state would have an excess of food, and the government would not spend any money or much on food stuffs of inmates.
The Director-General of the Ghana Prison Service, Mr. Isaac Kofi Egyir, had told public accounts committee of parliament last year that the penitentiary institution had been spending GH₵1.80 daily to feed each prisoner since 2011.
The Director-General was responding to a question from Dr. Clement Abas Apaak, a member of the committee and Member of Parliament (MP) for Bulsa South.
Besides the prions, Nana Akosua Kwao, the Queen Mother, highlighted that a significant portion of the government’s budget was allocated towards importing food for senior high schools as part of the free SHS policy.
To address this challenge, she noted that, “Foodstuffs will be in abundance if the government pushes for inmates to farm for the country.”
The Queenmother suggested that if the state farms initiative was restored, and prisoners allowed to work on it, government could redirect funds allocated for purchasing food for penitentiary institutions and secondary schools.
She noted that the farms could be producing staples such as rice, cowpeas, peanuts, cassava, plantains, and other essential items to feed those institutions.
“This would ensure that food is always available in schools and in the prisons,” she added.
GNA