| GOVERNMENT has directed the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to pay farmers within seven days of the purchase of their maize.And Government has vowed not to pay satellite depot supervisors who are allegedly conniving with ghost farmers to demand payment of undelivered maize.Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Ben Kapita, told Parliament yesterday that farmers were only expected to wait for less than seven days before receiving payment for their maize.
He said the seven-day period was aimed at enabling FRA officials to ensure that stocks were verified before making the payment.
Mr Kapita also said FRA would purchase 270,000 metric tonnes of maize from the K205 billion allocated in this year’s budget.
However, he said FRA would have to find alternative sources of funding to purchase the rest of the 130,000 metric tonnes of maize.
The minister was responding to a supplementary question by Kalomo MP Request Muntanga (UPND) who wanted to know why farmers were not being paid their maize in good time.
This followed a question by Gwembe MP Brian Ntundu (UPND) who wanted to know the cash crops the FRA was buying and the measures Government had taken to ensure that all the crops grown in Zambia were purchased by the agency.
In response to the question, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Daniel Kalenga, said the FRA Act only allowed the agency to purchase maize, rice, soya beans, cassava and sorghum.
He said it was not possible for FRA to purchase all crops grown because it was not within its mandate.
And Mr Kapita said his ministry has received information that some satellite depot supervisors were conniving with ghost farmers to demand payment for undelivered maize.
He said some supervisors had failed to prove that the maize whose payment was being demanded was delivered.
Mr Kapita also told the house that Government had signed an agreement with a Chinese company to rehabilitate silos for storage of maize.
And Mr Kapita defended FRA as the most competent board.
This was after calls by Mr Ntundu for the minister to dissolve the board.
Mr Kapita said the chairman of FRA was the biggest farmer in the country and that there were other experts in the field of agriculture who sat on that board. |
