President John Mahama has announced that rice, tomato puree, and mackerel have been added to the list of items banned from land transit in commercial quantities through Ghana’s borders, as the government moves to clamp down on smuggling and protect local industry.The President made the announcement at the commissioning of Ghana’s first pasta processing factory established by Olam Agri on Thursday, March 5.He also disclosed that pasta will soon be included on the list, indicating that he would direct the Finance Minister to implement the measure.“Now that we have our own pasta factory here, we must make sure that cheap, imported, smuggled pasta is not brought in through our eastern border,” the President said.“Recently, we’ve banned the import of vegetable cooking oil after the incident with 18 trucks that were found smuggling vegetable cooking oil. “We’ve added rice to the list. We’ve added tomato puree. We’ve added mackerel to the list. I’m going to tell the Minister of Finance to add pasta to the list.”Earlier in February, the government announced a ban on the transit of commercial quantities of vegetable cooking oil through Ghana’s land borders. The directive, issued by Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, required that such consignments be routed exclusively through the country’s seaports.The decision followed the interception of 18 articulated trucks declared as transit goods to Niger but suspected to be part of a wider transit diversion scheme intended to evade taxes and dump products on the local market.Beyond trade controls, President Mahama also revealed that Ghana is making progress toward local wheat production, a development that could strengthen the country’s food processing value chain.According to him, scientists from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have identified a wheat variety capable of growing successfully under Ghana’s climatic conditions.“Earlier this week, I was visited by our scientists from the Crops Research Institute under the CSIR, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. And they have made a breakthrough with wheat production,” he said.“They have identified a variety that can grow very comfortably in Ghana, which is normally called to be a temperate crop. “They have made a breakthrough, they have identified a variety, they have developed a variety that can be grown here locally.”The President said initial trials of the wheat variety produced encouraging results, with yields ranging between five and six tonnes per hectare.He indicated that the government will encourage collaboration between the researchers and Olam Agri to explore the possibility of integrating local wheat production into the value chain of the newly commissioned pasta processing plant.