The National Food Buffer Stock Company is calling on government to build adequate food reserves for food security.

It believes this will make Ghana a major supplier on the international market.

Addressing the Minister for Public Enterprises and his entourage on a working visit to the company, the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Food Buffer Stock Company, Dr Emmanuel Sarkodie, emphasized the need for Ghana to reduce importation of food by producing more locally.

“Just as we hold stocks for petroleum under BOST, it’s important that we hold stocks for food as well. Our funding is quite huge, however it is unsurmountable. So, our recommendation to government is to have some agricultural bills or bonds that are tradeable on the exchange. Instead of holding our reserves in dollars, we can hold some of our reserves in food,” he suggested.

Deputy Chief Executive of NAFCO, Kofi Amoako, revealed that his outfit currently holds 2,750 metric tonnes of grains for the Economic Community of West African States.

According to him, this is part of ECOWAS’ strategy of food sufficiency for the sub region.

“If there is any food crisis, by the time food relief comes from donor countries, it takes some months to get here. So, ECOWAS in its wisdom decided to hold food reserves in the sub-region and the European Union helped to fund this project. We hold about 2,700 metric tonnes of grains for any emergencies that may happen,” he disclosed.

Minister for Public Enterprises, Joseph Cudjoe, said he will embark on continuous supervision to ensure that state owned enterprises are profitable and pay dividends to the government.

“Private enterprises operate profitably because largely, the owner keeps an eye on them but with public enterprises, the owner [government] hasn’t kept much of an eye on them since independence. Hence, my outfit will now use the ‘strengthen governance’ strategy to ensure that they comply with the governance requirement,” he said.