Parties ignore salt sector

…As people of Ada demand salt industry training institution 

For the people of Ada, today’s poll is also about the future of the salt sector of Ghana, which incidentally happens to be their biggest source of livelihood.   

They may wish to know that they do not have to search deep to figure out who to vote for if the attention a party promises to give to the salt sector is their sole criterion.

Salt feeds thousands of households in Ada Songhor traditional area

To start with, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and the two smaller parties with representation in Parliament – the People’s National Convention (PNC) and Convention People’s Party (CPP) – do not give any indication of how they would develop the salt sector.

It is not clear if the Great Consolidate Popular Party (GCPP) of Dr Henry Lartey, and the United Front Party (UFP) of Mr Akwasi Addae, as well as Independent Candidate, Jacob Osei Yeboah, have any proposals for developing the salt sector. As you may recall, I have indicated at a previous time that accessing the manifestos or election agenda of these parties and candidate has been difficult.

So that takes us to the camps of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who have been incidentally described by pollsters as the frontrunners in this contest.

But before we take a look at what the pair promises, it would be important to know the demands of the People of Ada and perhaps, explain why Ada is leading a campaign for the development of the salt industry.

Salt and Ada

In recent years, interest in the Ada Songhor area has tremendously appreciated. Indeed, a “Strategy for Ghana’s Salt Sector”, which was prepared in 2009, described the Ada Songhor area as the most productive as far as salt production is concerned, emphasising that the area is crucial to the development of the salt industry in Ghana.

According to the Strategy, Ghana has about 500km coastal front with a total production potential of 2.2 million metric tonnes per year. Actual production is estimated at 250,000 metric tonnes per year, of which about 62,000 metric tonnes is exported annually, yielding US$ 3.043 million in 2007.

With the world market for salt growing and Ghana striking oil in 2007, the salt sector was expected to receive a major boost. Particularly, government was expected to remarkably improve the operations of the Songhor Salt project – a model set up by the State a few years ago.

But the company is said to be operating below capacity and still unable to take advantage of the existing huge market for salt, especially in Nigeria where the petro-chemical industry presents immense opportunities.

Senegal and Ghana are the major producers of salt in West Africa, with a large proportion of salt production going to satisfy human consumption needs. The main export markets are Niger, Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire, which together account for about 90% of Ghana’s total salt exports.

Meanwhile, the people of Ada have not been satisfied at the manner in which government has gone about improving the salt sector. This dissatisfaction is primarily based on a suspicion that political and personal interests have driven successive governments to fully privatise the salt enclave.

For the whole of 2012 in particularly, the Ada Songhor Advocacy Forum (ASAF) has led a campaign aimed at getting citizens to drive the process of developing the country’s salt sector to ensure that communities do not lose their livelihoods – winning salt and fishing are their mainstay and they suspect that full privatisation will result in relocation of scores of communities, leading to the inability of thousands of citizens to access the Songhor Lagoon for salt winning and fishing purposes.

They insist that there must be proper consultations and provision for simultaneous salt winning by communities and private companies if ever they agree to release portions of the Lagoon for private company activities.

In the last few weeks, therefore, the ASAF and allied groups and organisations, such as Radio Ada, have concretised the demands of the communities, which Mr Kofi Larweh of Radio Ada has made available to yours truly.

 The Ada people’s wish list

According to the concretised demands of the Ada people, parties and individuals seeking to lead the country must commit to:

• Establish a salt industry training institution
• Develop a community- and environmentally-friendly salt strategy and legislation that provides for security of tenure and livelihoods for citizens of the Ada Songhor area;
• Ensure full community participation and consultation in the lead up to the development of a salt sector strategy and legislation;
• Enter into agreement with the Ada land and lagoon owning clans regarding demarcation of salt winning sites for communities, co-operatives, companies – both public and private, as well as representation on management board of Songhor Project;
• Acknowledge salt and fishing as primary livelihood sources for the people of Ada; and
• Commit to legislate on employment of local people by companies if private companies are allowed into the enclave. 

Parties’ response

As indicated above, only the NDC and NPP appeared conscious of the existence of a salt resource, albeit devoting passive attention to it.

Discussing “Industrialization: Building On Our Oil Wealth” it its manifesto, President Mahama’s NDC indicates that it will pursue a petro-chemical industry based on salt and natural gas as well as a salt-based chemical industry for caustic soda.

The Nana Addo-led NPP only mentions salt when explaining how it intends to implement the “Economic Transformation for Prosperity and Job Creation” programme contained in its 2012 Manifesto. According to the NPP, the programme seeks to develop and add value “to our natural resources, including oil and gas, salt, gold, bauxite, iron ore, manganese and our agricultural products.”

In contrast, Dr Michael Abu Sakara Foster and the CPP; Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom and his PPP; and Mr Hassan Ayariga and the PNC all fail to mention salt.