The founder and leader of the United Renaissance Party (URP), Kofi Agbedefu Akakpo, known in public circles as Chuck Kofi Wayo has snubbed the annual National Farmers Day celebrations as a communist ideology and that, it is of no importance to the Ghanaian farmer. Speaking on Citi FM’s Break Fast Show on Friday, Kofi Wayo urged the government to rather address the problems facing Ghanaian farmers. He said, the government should rather invest more money into the education of the farmers so they can adopt and practise modern farming methods and record keeping. “It is inappropriate to give a car [to a farmer], how much is that car? You use their money to buy cutlasses ... you don’t want to educate them. Put that money into the education of the farmers and improve their productivity. They have to keep records; most of them cannot read and write,” he said. “They have to keep records. Let’s go back and check the farmers who won the [National Best Farmer] award five years ago, let’s go and see their conditions now, do you have a data on it? The government doesn’t know,” he added. Kofi Wayo was not happy about farmers not having pension since they also pay taxes to the government. “Do the farmers have pension when they grow old? They don’t. They automatically have to have pension ... why does the government collect their taxes and when they grow old, they don’t get pension?” He criticised the government for taking taxes from the people without putting the taxes into productive sector, instead, they use it to buy Land Cruisers which prevents production. He ascribes some of these instances as reasons why Ghanaians are poor. Story by Aglanu Dela Ernest/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana