The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in parliament has said the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been deceiving Ghanaians following claims it has carried out significant projects in the agricultural sector.

“In most of the cases, they (NDC) select only two years to demonstrate growth of the whole period of eight years – 2008-2015.This is tantamount to intellectual dishonesty to say the least,” the ranking member of the Food and Agriculture Committee, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto said at a press conference on Tuesday, October 4, 2016.

READ ALSO: NDC Manifesto

He argued that “The NDC selected the year 2008 and the year 2013 to show that distribution had increased over the whole period of eight years. They failed to mention that there was no distribution of subsidised fertiliser in the year 2014, and that only 90,000 metric tonnes out of the 180,000 that they put in the budget were distributed in the year 2015. That takes no mention at all in the manifesto.”

Touching on rice production, Dr Akoto said the NDC had “a whole period of eight years but they just showed numbers for 2008 and 2014 to show that rice production has also increased over the period of 2008-2015. What they failed to show is that rice production was down in the intervening years that is 2009-2013 and after 2014. What is worse is that they failed to mention that rice imports rose from 425,390 metric tonnes in 2008 to 630,200 metric tonnes in 2015.”

President John Mahama during his presentation of the highlights of the National Democratic Congress’ 2016 manifesto said, if he is re-elected in the December 7 general elections, he will invest massively in the sector.

READ ALSO: Ghana's Growth

He said he will expand investments into SADA, including provision for more than 100,000 hectares of irrigation-fed farmland.

The president added that Cold-chain infrastructure shall be deployed across all landing sites in coastal Ghana and storage facilities will be constructed across districts to minimise post-harvest losses.