The Minority in Parliament is demanding the immediate dismissal of Deputy Agriculture Minister, William Quaitoo from the government over disparaging comments he made against northerners.
“We are demanding that he should, immediately, on his own volition resign as a minister and quit from Parliament, failing which the President must sack him to show his revulsion against such ethnocentric tribal bigotry,” the Sagnarigu Member of Parliament, A. B. A Fuseini stated in a Citi News interview.
Mr. Quaitoo has since apologized after suggesting farmers in the northern part of the country could not be trusted on claims about the destruction wreaked by the Fall Armyworm on their farms.
He intimated that the complaints and calls for compensation were simply a ploy to fleece the government of some money.
But in his apology, the Deputy Minister said he meant to say “some farmers can be difficult as it is with all regions” and that the losses by farmers will be needed to be verified before the government could act on their complaints.
A livid Mr. Fuseini said he would not accept the apology as he feels the damage from the minister’s “repulsive” comments has already been done to millions of people.
“The people of the three northern regions have been grossly insulted… he has painted us a bunch of unreasonable people who cannot even understand and appreciate normal discourse then he goes on on the basis of that to say that we are untrustworthy people for perpetrating fraudulent activities, making false claims and stealing monies from state coffers.”
He said this was especially painful because the farmers only complaint “is that their farms have been devastated by fall armyworms and that government, which has a duty to help them must look at their face.”
But their pleas culminated in “a collective insult of the entire region,” Mr. Fuseini lamented.
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By: Umaru Sanda Amadu/citifmonline.com/Ghana