’Rural farmers’ inability to access MCA loans worrying

THE Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has expressed worry at the inability of rural farmers to access a $2 million grant which was allocated to them two years ago under the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA).
He said the situation had arisen because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had not been able to provide the farmers with an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to enable them to access the fund.
“Almost two years after its establishment, not even a single farmer has been able to access the fund because the processes are not complete. Therefore, the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) is putting everything together to enable farmers to access the fund,” he stated.
The minister was speaking at a sponsors’ night for the 19th National Awards for Export Achievement, 2007 organised by the Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC) in Accra.
He noted that about 60,000 farmers from 23 districts in Ghana had been trained in basic farm management and record keeping to make them eligible to access grants under the fund.
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the EPA, Mr William Abaidoo, said the agency was a responsible one which would not shirk its responsibility.
He said he believed that the farmers had not been taken through the right procedures or channels to access the fund.
Mr Abaidoo stated that the EPA was not bound to go to the farmers to register them but rather they were supposed to contact the EPA, as spelt out clearly in Legislative Instrument (LI) 1659, 1997.
“The law mandates anybody who wants to undertake a project to register with us, so that we can measure the impact of that person’s economic activity to the immediate environment,” he stated, noting that the EPA was now centralised and so prospective farmers could register with its regional offices.
Mr Abaidoo explained that the EIA involved the gathering and analysis of all relevant information on a proposed undertaking to determine the likely consequences if the undertaking was implemented in a given area in order to ensure sound, environmentally sustainable implementation of the proposed undertaking.
“It also takes into consideration appropriate mitigation or alternatives if there are likely consequences that will undermine the proposed undertaking,” he added.