Civil servants, others storm Agric. Ministry to purchase ‘cheap’ plantain

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture on Friday, November 11, 2022, commenced the pilot phase of its Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) Market at the ministry’s premises in Accra.

The market opened in the morning with a pickup load of plantains, which sold out within minutes.

The ministry, however, gave assurance that a truckload of plantains was expected to arrive later in the day.

Several civil servants who had noticed the event were seen loitering around the ministry, waiting for the food to arrive.

At about 3 pm, a truck loaded with heaps of plantains arrived at the premises of the ministry, much to the delight of the expectant civil servants.

A queue started appearing while the plantain was being offloaded.

The sale began quickly after a portion of the offloaded plantains were divided into four categories to determine their prices.

With GHC10, GHC15, GHC20, or GHC25, persons who came to the PFJ Market on Tuesday walked away with a bunch of plantains, which they described as affordable compared to prices on the general market.

The PFJ Market is an initiative by the Ministry of Agriculture to help public servants purchase food items at affordable prices in the midst of the rocketing food inflation in the country.

The initiative is by the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Afriyie Akoto, who has recently noted the high price of food items on markets in cities across the country as compared to prices in farming communities.

Speaking to GhanaWeb at the PFJ Market, Press Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Issah Alhassan, underscored the importance of the exercise.

According to him, the PFJ Market aims at allowing civil servants to purchase food items at cheaper prices with ease.

He noted that the exercise is expected to continue in the coming days, with food items such as yam and rice to be brought in for sale in addition to plantains.

Some of the civil servants who patronised the PFJ Market expressed delight about the competitiveness of the prices and called on the government to expand the initiative.

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Despite the ministry stating that the food items were to be sold to civil servants only, some members of the public were also able to purchase the plantains when they turned up at the PFJ Market.