Gifty Klenam

“As a CEO of GEPA, I work with targets. I set targets for myself and I work hard to achieve them or get closer to achieving them. We have set the target, and working our heart out to make sure we get to where we have promised the people. This year, we want to develop avocado. The product that we want to develop will take four or five years to mature, so we must start now. We cannot wait. The inflows that come in are not increasing. We are exploring funding, local and foreign investment.”

“The vision clearly defines that product development is our next major step. Since we took over, we have identified that it is not that the market for our products is not there, the issue is the sustainability of the product after it has entered the international market. Currently, we are concentrating on products that have a high value, in terms of adding value to it. We are trying to develop those products that we are exporting raw to end at a high value. Such products include avocado, cashew, coconut, pineapple, and other horticulture products.”

“The mandate of GEPA is to develop products and then promote those products in terms of market search, mainly for export purposes. GEPA is the institution mandated to implement the export strategy of the government. As our president has said, Ghana must move beyond aid. We still need foreign currency inflows into the country, but it must come in a different form, which we will earn through exports. We cannot export without product.”

“The strategy is to make sure that we sustain every product that we get the market to supply. We have various warehouses in most of the countries where we are going to export our produce. You can come to Ghana and the government as the center to source Ghanaian products. We are developing both the products and the marketing simultaneously.”

“Already, the yields that we were expecting to get from the existing plants we are not getting that is how come we started with the spraying of cashew farms in 2017. In October this year too, we are going to spray the cashew farms so we are able to at least increase production by three times.”

“We are putting so many things in place such as the ten year development plan for cashew that the President recently launched. We are looking at cashew alone giving us about forty percent of the overall target and for that matter, we are putting in so much effort into cashew production in terms of the seedlings development which is very crucial. Because if you are producing a product and you get it wrong from the seedling, the yield will be affected.”

“We must start from the basis of what we know how to do best. We are a predominately agricultural economy and developing that industry is our goal.”

“I'm still boss at GEPA, I've not been dismissed”

“The president appointed me and I give him the highest respect. I haven’t received any letter from the president. Thursday, the chief of staff called me and we went to have a conversation as a mother and daughter; that’s it. I’m still in office, I haven’t received any letter and I’ve been in office working as normal, so, I don’t know where that news came from but so long as I’m concerned, nobody has given me any letter to that effect.”

“I refer to the section of the conditions of service, that stipulate accommodation for the CEO, Dep CEO, and directors, namely, accommodation provided for the CEO shall be soft furnishing, for GM shall be hard furnishing and directors shall not be furnished.”