By Deborah Asantewaah SARFO
The Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Agribusiness (CAG), Anthony Morrison, has cited the lack of impact assessment and post-project monitoring mechanisms as key factors hindering the complete usage of development funds for projects in the agricultural sector.
He explained that the absence of a proper mechanism in place to track the progress of projects, their outcome and their impact on the sector remains one of the main factors leading to a minimal utilisation of funds received from donor partners such as GIZ, Mastercard and UNICEF, among others.
“For those who receive grants, especially in the private sector, the impact assessment and the post-project monitoring mechanisms are all not adequately catered for. So, the FOA, USAID, GIZ, Mastercard, UNICEF, UNESCO and others give grants, but how do we ensure that these grants go for the intended purpose and are not misused?” He noted that these are some of the things impeding the direct utilisation of development funds for the agriculture sector.
In an interview with another media outlet, he indicated that over the past years, the industry has received more than US$600million from developed and donor partners; yet out of the money received, only less than 50 percent finds its way into the actual job.
He added that a huge chunk of the funds goes into workshops, engagements and fora.
According to him, the National Development Planning Committee (NDPC), expected to be the hub of policy development, guidance and implementation, has failed in its mandate as it lacks the power to reprimand an agency or ministry that fails to deliver on its expected policy targets for a year.
To address the issue afore-mentioned, he proposed the development of an industry register or directory with an information management system where all finished and ongoing projects in the sector will be listed to track the progress and avoid duplication of similar projects.
“So, one of the key proposals is to make sure that we develop a very robust industry directory; the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Information Management System. Two, there must be included in that information management system national projects that are ongoing to avoid duplication; and have big project implementation,” he suggested.
He noted that because the sector has no records of data on ongoing, previous and onboarding projects, developed partners are overlapping each other in the same zone of influence for their project; and the government agencies are also overlapping themselves in implementing the same projects with different names in the same zone.
Mr. Morrison further noted that making such information available will ensure that projects are not crowded within a specific area, but rather spread across for all to benefit.
He concluded that we need to create an agricultural sector that is delivering directly on a mandate for the private and the public sector.
Meanwhile, President of the United States Donald Trump, in recent times, announced a temporary freeze on almost all foreign assistance as part of his “America First” agenda, halting billions of dollars in global funding.
