30 Oct 2016

Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, Mr Patrick Ralotsia has told Parliament that agriculture programmes such as LIMID and ISPAAD were introduced for a good course with guidelines to inform the applicants about the requirements.

He however, acknowledged that there were challenges with regards to the administration of the programmes which vary from one area to another Mr Ralotsia also said the programmes were also overwhelmed with problems because some Batswana were not fully utilising the agricultural inputs supplied such as fertilisers and seeds, or sometimes they would plough and desert their fields.

He said at times, beneficiaries were experiencing problems with regards to suppliers and late payments of suppliers by agriculture departments and that in some instances the numbers of applicants exceeded the budget for a particular financial year which created backlog. Mr Ralotsia further said the other impediment to the success of ISPAAD was rainfall, adding that members of the public were also in the habit of registering late for ploughing.

He was responding to questions asked by the Francistown West MP, Mr Ignitious Moswaane who had questioned the manner at which applications under the LIMID projects were handled. He complained of unclear guidelines for processing applications and turnaround time. Mr Moswaane said there was no timeframe for assisting the beneficiaries and that the programme was no longer fulfilling its intended purpose of alleviating people from abject poverty.

He said after approval applicants were involved in a tedious process of acquiring small stock which in the end was also repossessed by the owners because of late payments by agriculture department. ENDS