Ibrahim Ahmed, the Member of Parliament for the Banda Constituency, one of the crusaders against the ban on exportation of cashew nuts, has lauded the Ministry of Trade for withdrawing the directive.
He said Dr. Spio-Garbrah has proved that he is “a listening Minister.” The Ministry of Trade and Industry on Friday suspended a ban it placed on exportation of raw cashew nuts after it received a lot of bashing from Parliament.
A statement signed by Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah said the decision was mainly influenced by the view that the timing for the ban was wrong. The Ministry’s earlier directive banning the cashew nuts exports in a bid to improve local processing sector, infuriated MPs and some cashew nut farmers who mounted intense pressure on the Ministry to abandon the directive. The Ministry said it will soon put in some measures to streamline the cashew industry.
Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue, Mr Ahmed expressed gratitude to Parliament for supporting his campaign against the directive. “I think I have to say a very big thank you to the Speaker, then the Majority Leader, Alban Bagbin because by our procedure, you don’t just write a statement and you go and be airing it. You write the statement you give it to your leadership and that is the majority leader because I am on the majority side. He read through and minuted it to the speaker.
The speaker also read through and saw the urgency of the situation, how it was going to cause confusion and admitted it to be presented on the floor of Parliament. After presenting the statement, the Minister has also acted very democratically, he has proved that he is a listening minister and that what the people want is what he does.” He further said they would have supported the directive if the Trade Ministry had articulated the directive well. “The things that the minister has stated in the withdrawal statement, if these are the things he sought to do, all of us would have been supporting him,” he added.
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