Anti-corruption campaigner, Sydney Casely-Hayford has stated that it is primitive to send graduates to farms to plant for food.
According to Casely-Hayford, in this digital age, the world has moved beyond the stage of having too many people working on farms to cultivates foods for mass consumption and commercial purposes.
Casely-Hayford's comment comes after the National Service Secretariat disclosed early this week that 5,000 of 2018/2019 national service personnel have been deployed to support the Planting for Food and Jobs programme within the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.
5,000 of them deployed to support the Planting for Food and Jobs programme within the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.
Addressing the media at the Secretariat on Wednesday 18 July 2018, the Executive Director of the scheme, Mustapha Ussif said, “the Scheme in accordance with the Ghana National Service Scheme Act, 1980 (Act 426), has deployed over 85,705 personnel to the Agriculture and Agro Business, Education Support, Business Services, Community Health, Rural Development, Administrative Support, NSS Support, Urban Traffic and Urban Sanitation.â€
The Scheme also deployed 500 personnel to a new module called the Entrepreneurship and Innovation module.
This the Entrepreneurship and Innovation module, 500 personnel are deployed to acquire direct entrepreneurship skills under the supervision of skilled and well-established entrepreneurs in Agriculture and ICT.
However, speaking on Citi TV's news analysis show The Big Issue, Sydney Casely-Hayford stated categorically that, "I disagree that we should be putting our graduates on farms to plant food, other countries don't have 200 people farming, they have one person with machinery"
He added that "Ghana is becoming a rice consuming economy so we can grow enough for ourselves and export to other nations"