Two brand-new temperature controlled trucks acquired by the Ghanaian government with a loan from the African Development Bank have been rotting away in the scorching sun four years after they were purchased.
According to news website Ghana Web, the cold vans were bought at a reported cost of over €600,000 under the Export Marketing Quality Awareness Programme (EMQAP) in 2010 to ensure that harvested vegetables and other horticultural products are protected from decay prior to export.
However, disagreements between stakeholders on the repayment plan for the trucks and a controversy over who should manage the two trucks have led to the trucks being completely abandoned.
The trucks have been left at the mercy of the harsh weather at the premises of the Agric Ministry, Ghana Web reports, while the Vegetable Producers and Export Association (VEPEAG), Sea Fritz Pineapple Growers Association (SPEG), and Mango Growers Association, among others, haggle over how to manage the trucks.
The project coordinator of EMQAP, Mawuli Agboka, told Ghana Web that the government's proposal was that management of the two trucks be placed under one body with the repayment period reduced to five years instead.
He dismissed assertions the vehicles were in a sorry state and were about to be auctioned.
Even though he admitted that the controversy over the trucks was regretable, Agboka added that EMQAP - initiated in 2008 at a cost of $26 million, and which came to an end in December 2013 - had achieved success, citing the creation of the required infrastructure at the ports to keep the produce in good quality just before it is exported.
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