By THANDIWE MOYO –
THE Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) has said the number of hectares of maize affected by army worms have escalated from 107,000 to 115,176 countrywide.
DMMU National Co-ordinator Patrick Kangwa said, owing to the escalating pests in the affected districts, the mitigation unit has come up with more stringent strategies of distributing more chemicals in all provinces.
Mr Kangwa, who was speaking at a media briefing in Lusaka yesterday, said 53,000 litres of chemicals had been dispatched the previous day covering more than 107,000 maize hectares affected in the districts.
“Our team is working on assumptions of outbreaks and will place the chemicals in all those centres, currently all our teams have confirmed in all districts that the centres are operational,” he said.
Mr Kangwa said the increase of hectares affected was a reflection of the increase of people being aware of the pests.
He said that the public previously did not have adequate information strategies on past natural disasters.
Mr Kangwa was happy that the tax force that was commissioned to look into the origin of the pests and the measures that would help stop the re- occurrence in the next season was doing a commendable work.
He said the scientists will look into the risks analysis and the risk to ensure the public is aware.
Mr Kangwa said ready and precise information was imperative to efforts aimed at preventing and managing recurrence of natural disasters.
He said so far a total amount of K30.8 million would be spent in the fight against army worms.
The ministry of Finance on Friday released the said funds to the ministry of agriculture to help purchase chemicals and other needful substances to destroy the pests.