{"id":3727,"date":"2024-08-27T21:39:25","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T21:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/?p=3727"},"modified":"2024-08-27T21:39:26","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T21:39:26","slug":"president-akufo-addo-orders-finance-ministry-to-mobilize-gh%e2%82%b58bn-to-mitigate-drought-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/?p=3727","title":{"rendered":"President Akufo-Addo orders Finance Ministry to mobilize GH\u20b58bn to mitigate drought effects."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"464\" src=\"https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/Mohammed-Copy-696x464-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3728\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/Mohammed-Copy-696x464-1.jpg 696w, https:\/\/uwordpressmedia.blob.core.windows.net\/uwordpressmedia01\/2024\/08\/Mohammed-Copy-696x464-1-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>President Akufo-Addo has directed the Finance Ministry to raise a GH\u20b58 billion relief package to support farmers facing devastating losses due to an unrelenting dry spell&nbsp;in the eight regions in Ghana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Finance Minister, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam disclosed this at a press briefing on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The relief package will include cash transfers, food supplies, and other essential items for the affected farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A technical task force, comprising officials from the Ministries of Finance and Food and Agriculture, will oversee the distribution to ensure fairness and accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur response may not entirely neutralise the extent of the problem. But our response certainly will help in stabilising the situation until we get out of the crisis. And so, as the Minister for Food and Agriculture said, we are seeking to raise about $500 million, the equivalent of GH\u20b58 billion, to fund the crisis response programme,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Expressing worry over the phenomena, Dr Amin said the funds are to be raised at a time when the buffers are almost depleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is difficult but we have to raise the funds. As a responsible and sensitive government as we are, the President has directed that we do everything within our power to find the money and fund the government response,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giving the sources of the relief package, the Minister explained&nbsp;government has been able to secure up to $160 million which is about GH\u20b52.5 billion from the contingency fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, GH\u20b52.4 billion will come as support from development partners, including the World Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the assistance from the World Bank, Dr Amin noted its primary focus would be cash transfers and the provision of agricultural inputs to aid recovery efforts while that from the contingency vault will be used to bring in more grains to provide relief to farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo out of the GH\u20b58 billion we are seeking to mobilise, we can say that we have visibility of about GH\u20b55 billion that we want to use quickly to respond to the crises,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Preliminary assessment has revealed massive destruction of farm crops in the Bono, Bono East, Oti, Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper-East, and Upper-West regions<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prolonged lack of rain has left farms parched and crops withered, endangering the livelihoods of farmers and posing a serious threat to food security in the northern regions<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has also led to wilting crops and significantly reduced harvests, forcing many farmers to abandon their fields altogether.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Akufo-Addo has directed the Finance Ministry to raise a GH\u20b58 billion relief package to support farmers facing devastating losses due to an unrelenting dry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3729,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3727\/revisions\/3729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbmediaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}