Energy Minister Joseph Kofi Addah has explained that his presence in parliament on Tuesday with a quantity of salt was never meant to spite the salt industry or salt producers. He maintained that he has never looked down on salt producers or the industry, and will never do that. The Minister who featured on Joy FM’s news and current affairs programme, Front Page, told host Kwaku Sakyi Addo that he has personally benefited from the salt industry, and cannot therefore contemplate denigrating the industry. Mr. Addah was reacting to a demand by a caller to the programme, Adams from East Legon that the Minister apologise to Ghanaians and salt producers in general for insulting the salt industry. The Minister on Tuesday went to Parliament to officially inform the house of the oil find made at the Cape Three Points area of the Western Region. In his possession were quantities of salt and also oil, which he showed to the MPs. Many have interpreted the minister’s action to mean the salt industry was inferior to that of oil. “My uncle traded in salt. He did not come all the way down here to the coast, he did it in the Daboya area of the Northern Region and used some of these proceeds to support my father who went to school and for my father to be able to support me, so I know how important salt is,” he said. “I’m also aware the amount of salt we export to Burkina Faso, to Mali, to Niger and so on and so forth…Nobody is talking about the salt industry or at least I did not talk about the salt industry or seek to put it down. He said his action was to impress upon the parliamentarians, as law makers and people who examine government policy, that there was need to abide by policies. “I went there to try to let them know that if we are not focused on our policy objectives, on the core businesses of the institutions that we set up we will have problems, and we did not benefit much from being able to go this far when the policy orientation of the GNPC was slightly deviated from its core business.” Mr. Addah insisted that he had no reason whatsoever to look down on any one industry against the other. “How can I put them down when I’m trying to let them know that I benefited from the trade business myself.? It’s a very vital one and I’m promoting it in my constituency for some of the market women who are trading …there is no insult intended whatsoever and that will never come from me.”