Sto­ry by CARISA LEE

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has sought to strength­en ties be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ghana, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ar­eas of agri­cul­ture, trans­port and the en­er­gy sec­tor.

The Prime Min­is­ter cur­rent­ly is in Ghana, a spe­cial guest of that coun­try, as it ob­serves its 63rd An­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence.

He is us­ing his time in the West African coun­try to build a stronger bond be­tween both na­tions.

“This mile­stone that we've marked will man­i­fest it­self fur­ther in the kind of con­tacts that we are try­ing to build,” says Dr Row­ley.

The PM says when he leaves Ghana, his spe­cial ad­vi­sor on agri­cul­ture mat­ters—Dr John Al­leyne—will re­main to learn more about the coun­try's ground pro­vi­sion sub-sec­tor. Agri­cul­ture is one of Ghana’s ma­jor eco­nom­ic sec­tors, pro­vid­ing em­ploy­ment on a for­mal and in­for­mal ba­sis.

The in­ten­tion is to re-de­vel­op the sec­tor here in T&T, as part of Gov­ern­ment’s eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts in light of volatile en­er­gy prices, as well as to en­sure food se­cu­ri­ty for this coun­try.

“We in Trinidad and To­ba­go have been con­cerned about our food se­cu­ri­ty and very de­pen­dent on the con­sump­tion of North­ern Hemi­sphere wheat prod­ucts, and have lost our ad­van­tage and tra­di­tion of grow­ing ground pro­vi­sion.”

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is using his time in Ghana to build a stronger bond between both nations.

OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER

Dr Row­ley says as Ghana teach­es us about their ground pro­vi­sions sub-sec­tor, they will be able to ac­cess our ex­per­tise at the UWI Co­coa Re­search Cen­tre for their co­coa pro­duc­tion stud­ies, an eco­nom­ic com­mod­i­ty from which both na­tions ben­e­fit.

The PM al­so en­cour­aged Ghana­ians to ex­pe­ri­ence the beau­ty of the Caribbean, which at­tracts tourists from all around the world. He be­lieves non-stop flights be­tween both coun­tries us­ing Ghana Air­ways when it is re-es­tab­lishedc can be ben­e­fi­cial.

“We would like to an­tic­i­pate that one of the legs of Ghana Air­ways will be a craft to Port of Spain that will bring the Caribbean and Amer­i­c­as to a high­way, pro­vid­ing the short­est route to the African con­ti­nent.”

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said T&T is look­ing for­ward to tak­ing part in the gas pro­cess­ing busi­ness in Ghana.

He al­so said this coun­try is proud that one of its in­dige­nous banks, Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed, has opened a branch in Ghana.