The government intends to build about 30 warehouses nationwide for storage of foods in a bid to forestall surge in prices of crops in the country.
According to a Deputy Minister of Agric, Dr. Sagre Bambangi, the Ministry is currently undertaking the necessary procurement processes for the establishment of the warehouses.
He said the 30 warehouses are part of the 80 the government plans to build to forestall issues that characterized shortage of foodstuffs in Ghana.
The Deputy Minister made the revelation on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday, on the back of report of a possible surge in the prices of foodstuffs.
“…We are making frantic efforts to ensure that warehouse facilities are available. At least by the end of our first term in office as a government, we would have addressed a lot of these problems. We are in the procurement process to build 30 warehouses across the country.”
“We budgeted for about 80 and I’m sure the procurement process for the rest of them will follow later. I believe that we will be able to address this problem to a large extent but I cannot tell you for sure that the problem will be completely resolved,” he added.
Esoko report
Report by commodity price analysis firm, Esoko Ghana suggests that prices of foodstuff are expected to go up this month, July, as challenges facing agric production remain unresolved.
According to Esoko, prices of foodstuffs including tubers and vegetables are expected to go up.
Content Manager at Esoko Ghana, Francis Danso Adjei told Citi Business News that the increase in prices of commodities can be attributed to the seasonal changes in production.
“We have particular months within the year where production is quite slow and for that matter, we depend on the one that was harvested the previous season. So the prices looking at where they are now is as a result of the fact that we don’t have a lot in the system and are depending on what we had from the previous harvest and that is accounting for the rise in the commodities” he explained.
Commodity price upsurge normal
Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister said although they are concerned about such issues he said they “are not unusual” because “we are in the lean season.”
“You know the structural problem that has bedeviled our agricultural sector, you know that we don’t have good storage facilities, you know the problem we have with production. So this is the real lean season, so when we are getting to this stage, of course we will experience some increases in prices. These are seasonal,” Dr. Bambangi added.