Deputy Minister of Agriculture (livestock), Dr Louisa Hannah Bissiw, has defended government’s decision to decentralize the veterinary services, saying, it would promote timely response to disease outbreaks.
She said it would bring efficiency into animal disease surveillance process and streamline the reporting system to conform to international best practices.
She therefore urged the affected departments that would be transferred to the Local Government Service, to embrace the move.
Dr Bissiw was opening a two-day national mid-year review meeting of the Veterinary Services Directorate in Kumasi.
The participants are taking stock of their performance – identify any shortfalls and discuss the way forward.
The Deputy Minister spoke of the government’s determination to revamp the directorate by addressing its severe staff shortage.
“Every year, increasing numbers of veterinary staff go on retirement but all effort made to replace them has not yielded any fruits. I will like to assure you that we will not spare any effort to replace those who have gone on retirement,” she indicated.
She said the refreshing news was that “the first batch of veterinarians being trained at our universities will pass out next year and this will go a long way to improve on the manpower situation at the directorate”.
She said her ministry would continue to put in place the needed interventions to grow the livestock sector and cited the Broiler Revitalization Project.
The project aims at helping to reduce the huge volumes of low quality imported poultry products to boost local poultry production.
“This will save the country a substantial amount of foreign currency and improve the livelihood of the local poultry farmers”, she added.
Dr Albert H. K. Kwansah-Filson, the Ashanti Regional Veterinary Officer, said the service’s contribution to the economy had been remarkable and urged action to deal with its manpower deficit.
Source: GNA