Kafue District Agriculture Coordinator (DACO) Mwanji Chella says the e-voucher system is being operated under a liberalized economy and as such the agro-dealers are free to set floor prices for their commodities.
Mr. Chella was responding to complaints by farmers in Kafue District over the low packs of fertilizers they were receiving from the agro dealers.
Recently , few farmers in the District have only benefited 6 packs and not the expected 8 pack as some agro dealers have increased the prices of the fertilizers.
However, the DACO said the e-voucher system is very different from the conventional system in that farmers need to make agreements with the suppliers of the inputs and understand the terms and conditions of the services available.
Attributing the increase of fertilizers to the disturbance of operations at the National Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ), Mr. Chella said this led agro dealers to source for the fertilizer from elsewhere thereby resulting in increased prices as a result of transportation costs.
He however noted that government cannot dictate floor prices for any commodity but will not sit idle and let traders exploit farmers in any way.
Meanwhile the DACO revealed that Kafue District received 8,380 depositors under the e-voucher out of 95 cooperatives.
He said 4553 cards have since been activated and farmers have begun swiping and collecting inputs from different agro-dealers.
He stated that the District expects 2500 cards to be activated by Wednesday reaching their target of over 7,000 farmers.
He said the program is on course and most farmers are benefiting from the system.
These PF bandits of visionless Lungu have no clue how to run the economy, its chipantepante sort of poor governance & top mediocrity.
The Skeleton Key
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