The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, has distanced himself from claims that a body known as the National Broiler Project Directorate is implementing poultry-related programmes under his ministry.<\/p>\n
According to the Minister, he is unaware of any such office undertaking projects, insisting that all government agricultural initiatives fall under his direct supervision.<\/p>\n
The issue was discussed on The Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, where host Bernard Avle sought clarification over reports that some beneficiaries of the \u201cNkoko Nkitinkiti\u201d programme received fewer than the expected 50 birds.<\/p>\n
Earlier on the programme, the National Coordinator of the alleged directorate, Kelvin Ocran, indicated that his outfit focuses on supplying birds to large-scale farms to help meet the country\u2019s poultry demand. \u201cIt is important that, looking at the unemployment, you create a new programme, called the poultry entrepreneurs, to start from the base. Because the field is also a delicate area, we do not want to give someone who is a novice over a thousand birds to raise.<\/p>\n
So, what we are doing is providing enough support for the industry,\u201d he explained. However, reacting to the claims, Mr Opoku rejected any suggestion that the directorate operates under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, clarifying that such a body, to his knowledge, does not implement government projects. \u201cThat office is supposed to be an advisory office. They don\u2019t actually implement projects.<\/p>\n
I am surprised, and I am not aware of that,\u201d he said. When further pressed on whether such an office exists within the ministry, the Minister responded emphatically: \u201cNo, no, no.\u201d Mr Opoku stressed that all agricultural programmes are executed under his authority and through officially recognised structures within the ministry. \u201cI am the Minister for Food and Agriculture. All such projects are executed under my instruction, and my team is working.<\/p>\n
I have never heard that such a project is being run by another agency,\u201d he stated. He added that he had not seen any budgetary allocation for such an initiative, raising further doubts about its legitimacy. \u201cThis is the first time I am hearing this. In the budget, I also did not see any allocation for such an initiative.<\/p>\n
So, if that is a private initiative or something, I may not be aware,\u201d he added. The development raises fresh questions about coordination within Ghana\u2019s poultry sector initiatives, particularly as the government rolls out programmes aimed at boosting local production and addressing unemployment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, has distanced himself from claims that a body known as the National Broiler Project Directorate is implementing poultry-related programmes under his ministry. According to the Minister, he is unaware of any such office undertaking projects, insisting that all government agricultural initiatives fall under his direct supervision. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":16178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3788,4514,41,18],"tags":[4034,5116,5117,5118,4471],"class_list":["post-16177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-food","category-general-news","category-politics","tag-eric-opoku","tag-food-and-agriculture","tag-kelvin-ocran","tag-national-broiler-project-directorate","tag-nkoko-nkitinkiti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16179,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16177\/revisions\/16179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}