SECTION B: SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

B.1 Making food storage, processing and marketing channels more efficient and dynamic
B.2 Adapting urban market infrastructure and facilities to meet the food needs of the year 2020
B.3 Improving market planning, management, rules and regulations
B.4 Improving market information and promoting grading and standards
B.5 Role, constraints and performance of women food traders and youth employment in food marketing

Workshop participants identified a number of issues of major concern concerning the supply and distribution of food to Accra and its Metropolis. They are summarised below.

B.1 Making food storage, processing and marketing channels more efficient and dynamic

• Marketing channels supplying Accra consumers with food are long and complex. Furthermore, there are multiple levies imposed by all local authorities (LAs) along the distribution chain. Additionally, the delays to inspect goods at barriers set up by LAs in their respective districts further intensify spoilage. This situation contributes to higher physical losses during transit and food quality deterioration, which result in higher food prices in Accra. Concerned LAs should analyse this situation and co-operate to facilitate the smooth flow of food to Accra.
• Market Queens are often criticised for food price manipulation and for creating artificial food shortages, which they do, for example, by preventing food trucks from entering Accra markets. Market Queens explain this as an attempt to minimise traffic congestion.

  The workshop participants recommended the creation of 'Sunday' markets to allow food producers and “non-collusive traders” to sell directly to consumers. Such arrangement would increase competition. The LAs should implement this recommendation.

• Food storage facilities are insufficient in both rural and urban markets. With foodstuff exposed to the vagaries of weather and pests, post-harvest losses increase.

  The Ghana Food Distribution Corporation (GFDC) owns silos in rural and urban centres with capacity available for rent to traders and farmers. However, it seems that insufficient publicity has been given to this opportunity. Farmer associations should be encouraged to make use of storage facilities. LAs and the GFDC can liaise to promote such facilities.

• While processing can improve storability and shelf life of produce, urban consumers do not have a preference for locally processed foods. This is because of suspected adulteration by both food processors and market traders. The LAs should liaise with the Public Health Department and the GSB to research into this area and to prescribe appropriate sanctions. Appropriate standards and recommended safety packaging would enhance public confidence.
• In Ghana, the main barrier to entry into food marketing is lack of finance. Traders tend to raise their own capital and recurrent financing usually starting from a very limited scope and expanding gradually over time and across commodity types. Their expenditures relate mainly to acquisition of market space, vessels for storage and portage and inventory cash. Small-scale traders and hawkers do not access and utilise formal banking credit. Transport owners and large-scale itinerant traders however do use these even though the workshop did not elicit levels of such credit within the Accra Metropolis. They hardly contribute to investment in market infrastructure.

B.2 Adapting urban market infrastructure and facilities to meet the food needs of the year 2020

• Among the many problems identified under this heading, the most important one was traffic congestion around markets caused by encroaching hawkers and by the renting of parking spaces as sale spaces by LAs aiming to maximise toll revenues. An immediate possible action is the enforcement of existing legislation on hawking and unlawful parking. The LAs ought to reappraise their market plans to avoid the irresponsible proliferation of stalls over every available space at existing market sites.
• The insufficiency of urban market places is, too, a cause of food trading activities taking place in the street, which increases traffic congestion. LAs and the private sector should develop joint market development schemes on a profit sharing basis.
• Markets are frequently burnt down, mostly because of faulty electrical systems. Such fires have disastrous economic consequences for human lives, goods and properties. The AMA and the Electricity Corporation of Ghana (ECG) should set up a task force to rapidly inspect and repair electrical installations in urban markets. Where electrical systems were privately installed, repair costs should be borne by stall owners. Thereafter, a series of “surprise” checks should be carried out and heavy penalties imposed for violations of safety regulations.
• Most urban markets are insecure both for products and persons. The LAs should set up perimeter walls, fencing, lighting systems and police posts at market sites in urban centres.
• Many markets in Accra suffer from poor drainage and sanitation. Unpaved floors and blocked drains as well as lorry park congestion all lead to wet and unsanitary market places. The need to tar or use cemented flooring is essential. So is the need for opening up drains and sewage disposal vents. The free flow of traffic at stations if these are tarred and not pot-holed will mean faster entry and exits of vehicles and a potential for decongestion. Again, LAs were seen as the main vehicle to undertake these improvements, in consultation with Market Trader Associations and the Transport Unions. Representatives of these bodies expressed their willingness to support any special levies dedicated to these forms of developments. They did express the caveat though that contractual tenders to LAs were often exaggerated and that if their monies will go into these forms of co-operation then they will like to be a part of the tender committees to ensure that their monies were efficiently used.
• With respect to market cleaning, subcontracting was considered a more effective alternative to LAs' direct involvement.

B.3 Improving market planning, management, rules and regulations

• Market facilities are generally inadequate throughout the urban areas, and clearly absent in new residential areas.

  Old markets at strategic sites within Accra should be rehabilitated. The use of satellite markets including bulk-breaking sites at railheads should be improved and developed. New markets and market site displacements should be undertaken if feasible and in partnerships between the LAs and private sector.

  Sunday markets, or such other periodic markets, were seen as a way forward to ease congestion at town centre markets. The LAs should take the lead in their development.

• The AMA is responsible for market management, but the quality of such management is generally inadequate. Market regulations are hardly ever respected. Because of inflation in recent years, sanctions no longer represent a deterrent. Market Management Boards should be established and strengthened by joint L.A./private sector management committees for new markets. Some joint market ventures have recently been undertaken by the AMA, Trader Associations and private businesses to build and manage markets.
• Existing by-laws ruling the operations of markets are outdated. For instance, currency depreciation has deprived financial penalties, set in the 1960s, of their punitive value. LAs should therefore promote a revision of present legislation and regulations.
• Market operators have established their own rules, which are often at variance with official laws and regulations. This situation is a source of possible conflict and should be eliminated. Present conflicts should be addressed and settled. Existing “unofficial” rules should be seriously examined by LAs and endorsed if considered appropriate. Official rules and regulations should then be made known to all market users and their observance adequately enforced.
• One reason for the poor participation of the private sector in the construction, control, and management of markets in Ghana was the issue of market ownership. Current legislation limits private investments in market infrastructure and should be reviewed.
• Different LAs charge different levies on the movement of food and agricultural produce. Such plurality of levies is unlikely to be known by traders and transporters. This generates conflicts often leading to peace-breaching disputes in markets between traders and local public officers. It is important that LAs harmonise their levies and ensure adequate supervision of their implementation so as to prevent unlawful practices. This is a field requiring effective collaboration among LAs.

B.4 Improving market information and promoting grading and standards

• Market information (availability of supplies, prices, road conditions and locational transfer costs) plays an essential role in dynamising marketing activities. The itinerant trader is usually the main source of market information.

  Lack of market information may help explain wide food price fluctuations and could also contribute to higher marketing costs. The MFA should consider improving its agricultural Market Information Service in close collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce and private sector organisations.

• Grading and standards are absent in Ghana. Scales also are unused on markets: tins, bowls and sacks being the most popular measuring instruments. This situation prevents agricultural producers from obtaining better prices for their products and exposes consumers to higher food prices resulting from incorrect weighing practices.

  Institutions like the GSB, MFA, Farmer and Trader Associations, Food Research Institute, Atomic Agency Commission of Ghana should co-ordinate to develop criteria for grades and standards. Subsequently, these should be made the subject of an information campaign in which LAs should be actively involved to educate the public on grading and the use of weights and measures.

B.5 Role, constraints and performance of women food traders and youth employment in food marketing

• The work of female food traders is hampered by a general lack of capital. LAs could sensitise financial institutions to set up banking operation halls within markets and to attend the needs of market women in terms of loans and banking facilities (for example, late-evening banking).
• The fact that women traders are also mothers and, sometimes, nursing mothers, means that they need to work within a healthy environment. Thus specific market facilities are required: toilets and washrooms, resting places, first aid centres and shade.