According to him, with the benefit of hindsight, he thinks the National Democratic Congress government he led got the policy wrong and will do it differently if given another chance.
Speaking at Munich, Germany, where he is attending the 59th Munich Security Conference 202, Mahama said buying the tractors and putting them in a pool for someone with the expertise to manage and provide the tractor services to farmers would have been a better way to implement the policy.
“I realised some of the things that we did, we made mistakes, we imported tractors and agricultural equipment, and we gave it to farmers. The farmer does not need the tractor, he does not need the agricultural equipment, he needs the services of a tractor,” the former President is quoted as saying.
“So, somebody who knows how to maintain that tractor must have a service centre, where he provides the services to the farmer. But we gave the tractors to the farmers, and in a year or two the tractor had broken down because he [farmer] doesn’t know that every six months you must change the engine oil, you must change the filters, you must grease the tractor, he [farmer] doesn’t know that. So, we will approach it differently,” he added.
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The 59th Munich Security Conference 2023 provides a platform for high-level debates on key foreign and security policy challenges.
Mahama is the Chairperson of the Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa. The Tana Forum in collaboration with Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e.V. (BDI) on Saturday, hosted a side event, an MSC Regional Breakfast on “Africa’s Place in a multipolar world: Moving from strategy to action.”
Being the Chair of the Tana Forum, President Mahama opened the session and Africa’s Minister for Defence, Thandi Modise, delivered the keynote remarks.
It was addressed by the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, and Wolfgang Niedermark of BDI, the Federation of German Industries.