Almost all the fuel stations dotted between Navrongo and Paga, a border town in the Upper East Region have been used as drying and bagging grounds for rice. Paga is a border town of a distance of seven kilometres from Navrongo.

All these fuel stations were built at the time Ghana’s fuel was cheap and so building a fuel station close to a border town could aid a fuel dealer smuggle fuel out of Ghana to make more money.

The fuel price in Ghana is now at par or higher than the fuel in neighbouring countries so fuel smuggling has come to a stop at border towns.

Rice farmers in the Fumbisi valleys in the Builsa South District, farmers at the Tono Irrigation Dam of the Upper East Region, other valleys within the Kasena-Nankana Municipality and the overseas areas of the West Mamprusi Municipality of the North East Region sell the rice to buyers who then rent these abandoned fuel stations for drying and bagging.

To some extent this creates employment for women and the youth who are employed to dry, winnow, bag and load the bags into vehicles for the milling centres in the southern sector of Ghana.

One can count over 20 fuel stations between Navrongo and Paga Border a distance of about seven kilometres and almost all these fuel stations have been rented for the drying and bagging of rice. 

FROM PETER GBAMBILA, NAVRONGO.