Maravi

Govt releases K25bn for maize marketing season

Govt releases K25bn for maize marketing season
By Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Thursday October 16, 2008 [04:00]

The government has released the remaining K25 billion of the targeted K80 billion for this year’s marketing season, Food Reserve Agency (FRA) executive director Dr Anthony Mwanaumo said yesterday.

Updating the media on the progress of this year’s maize marketing exercise, Dr Mwanaumo announced that the Agency was on course to purchase the projected 80,000 metric tonnes of maize.

He said the FRA had so far purchased about 67, 000 metric tonnes of maize from the small-scale farmers.

Dr Mwanaumo also announced that the FRA had so far paid K63.2 billion to small-scale farmers who supplied who sold their maize during this marketing season.

And Dr Mwanaumo has attributed FRA’s good performance this year to the Agency’s sole dependency on the government for financing.

“Last year, we had the government grant and borrowings as our source of funding. Other players were not as eager to participate in the market and so, by and large, everything was left to the Food Reserve Agency. So the rate at which the monies was coming, vis a vis the crop was coming, there was kind of a gap there,” said Dr Mwanaumo.

Labels: ANTHONY MWANAUMO, FRA, MAIZE

posted by MrK @ 3:57 PM