By CHILA NAMAIKO –
THE Government is working diligently to find solutions to address challenges affecting effective implementation of the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) particularly the Electronic-Voucher (e-voucher) system, Parliament heard yesterday.
Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya told the House that, under the e-voucher system, a total of K803.7 million was disbursed for implementation, out of the K1.026 billion required.
Ms Siliya said, of the 602,521 cards in the system, 513,786 were sent for activation, and as of Monday this week, a total of 434, 762 cards, were activated with the amount disbursed so far.

SILIYA

“This leaves a balance of K260.1 million for activation on the cards already distributed to the framers. A further K5.9 million is owed to the five participating banks for the production of the e-voucher cards,” she said.
She said this in a ministerial statement in updating the House on the implementation of FISP for 2016/2017 agricultural season.
To this effect, Ms Siliya said, the Government was planning a stakeholder meeting to review the performance of FISP, share experiences and to improve performance of the programme during 2017/2018 farming season.
She said, some delays in distribution of inputs under conventional FISP, could be attributed to late release of funds for the programme, which resulted in delayed payments to seed and fertiliser suppliers as well as transporters for inputs and services provided during the 2015/2016 farming season.
The fertiliser demand of this farming season was underestimated by major suppliers as the total demand of the commodity in the country, both basal and top dressing, was about 400,000 tonnes per annum.
She said the amount still owed to fertiliser and seed suppliers including transporters was K2 billion in this farming season.
Those that supplied fertiliser were owed K1.67 billion, for seeds K3332.9 million, while the transporters were at K8.4 million.
Scores of MPs during follow-up questions supported the proposal by the Government to hold a stakeholders meeting to review performance of FISP.
Meanwhile, the Government has dismissed claims of some markets and bus stations being run by Patriotic Front (PF) cadres, and in a bid to enhance management of those facilities, it has since embarked on a programme to appoint management Boards to manage them.
The management boards, to be effected in June this year, would manage and control markets and bus stations in line with clause 13 (1) of the Markets and Bus Stations Acts.
Local Government Minister Vincent Mwale told Parliament in a ministerial statement yesterday that, such intervention was envisaged to eliminate the undesirable influence of the various political ‘groupings’ in the management of the markets and bus stations.
Mr Mwale said the intervention would also ensure adequate revenue collections for local authorities from a National Markets and Bus Stations Development Fund that would be established to assist in raising sufficient funds.