Government says it will next year introduce a new programme called e-voucher to replace the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) to eliminate corruption and help farmers diversify from maize production.
Agriculture and Livestock Minister Emmanuel Chenda said government has had some serious challenges with FISP and that’s why it was introducing the e-voucher system to deal with individual farmers.
Mr Chenda said the change in the provision of the service is meant to eliminate corruption because some cooperativeness had been hijacked by some people from the same family and government wanted to stop that.
This came to light when the Agriculture and livestock Minister came to inform farmers in the area that government has released K100 billion to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to pay farmers on the Copperbelt.
Mr Chenda said government had realized that there was too much corruption during the process because very few people managed to get the inputs when the program was for the poor farmers.
He said the biggest challenge that government was facing was the distribution of FISP in the districts when it was for the resource poor citizens so that they could grow food to alleviate poverty.
Mr Chenda said government thought of introducing the e-voucher system because most people that benefited from FISP through the cooperatives were mainly farmers from the same cooperatives instead of the resource poor citizens.
He said there would be no corruption in the e-voucher process because farmers would be registered one by one and that communication would only be between the agriculture ministry and the farmer himself and not through the cooperatives.
He said the system would be easy because the farmer would have to cash the e-vulture system with ago-dealers and thus promote employment to the youths.
Mr Chenda further said that more people in the country were going into farming, but very few benefited from FISP.
ZANIS
Good move you would have started it even now.Co- operatives have failed us fisp is only for those in leadership who gets more packs than the general membership
Just shut up! We are tired of your never ending cries about corruption when you are also running a nepotistic and corrupt tribal regime. How ironic that the MMD’s corrupt system at least delivered inputs in time, ensured bumper harvests and ensured that farmers were paid in time. Now we have the so called corrupt free PF system and all we see is confusion and mealie meal shortages , non payment to farmers and high mealie meal prices. PF you’ve failed and please do the country a favour and step down
. You’re a bunch of incompetent buffoons!
You are an *****. The gov’t is trying to come up with something tangible and because you operate with under 5 alibe matebela, you think its not workable? Uli mbushi.
Iwe i.d.i.o.t. sela tubombeko
Iwe naiwe sela tubombeko!
Long overdue. However it must be a wining off program to curtail dependency sydrome.
Ba #2 naimwe just shut up if you don’t understand what an e-voucher is. To me, this is a step in the right direction. The status quo is not sustainable. We need to computerise things to reduce the number of people involved in the chain. This cuts down on corruption.
DOES PF NEED A SECOND SECOND FOR :……………………………… ………………. 1.faluire to honor 90 days campaign promise……………………………………………………………………. 2. FRA maize late payment …………………………………………………………………………………………… 3. UTH Water crisis and govt’s lack of argency to reaction to people’s pressing needs………….. 4
.delibarate destroying of MMD and creating of unnecessary bye-elections………………………… 5. taking RDA to state house 6. unlawful apointment of Prof, chirwa with dual nationality… email me [email protected]
The so called e voucher cannot stop corruption because farmers will be registering their children as separate family individuals.No system is foolproof and i cannot already visualise the terrible weaknesses of this system.watch this space.
And what pray tell is an e-vulture? Let me guess. One who lurks in cyber space waiting to swoop down on unsuspecting prey in order to cash in :)
I want me an e-vulture. Vouchers are so last year. Giggles from LT always brighten my day .
any thing that reduces costs by cutting out the middle man is welcome.do your homework well and give us results thats your job bwama minister
he is already mentioning Ago-dealers
I have read this article twice and I still do not understand how this will work for the poor computer illiterate farmer in Katete or Mpika. How is e-voucher system going to help in crop diversification specifically and reduce corruption? Is e-voucher system just a computerised database? Who is using this system in the region?
These writers overlook how tech savvy its readership are but they still continue to churn out ill-researched poor articles like the one above..very disappointing indeed.
I also don’t understand this, ZANIS should have some standards! E-vulture? How about explaining what it is and how it works?
# 7 and 8, DON’T WORRY. ILLITERATES IN ZAMBIA ARE MORE CLEVER THAN LITERATES. THEY WILL KNOW HOW TO USE THE SYSTEM IN NI TIME. BY THE WAY THIS DOES NOT MEAN A FARMER OWNING A COMPUTER AND OPERATING IT HIMSELF/HERSELF, NO. IT MEANS A FARMER BEING ISSUED WITH AN ELECTRONIC CARD SO TO SAY, AND PRESENT THIS CARD AT AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO A CASHIER AT APPOINTED OUTLETS WHO IN TURN SWIPES IT ON A BAR-CODE READER AND CORRECT DESCRIPTION OF ITEMS HANDED OVER TO THE FARMER. IN THE SIMILAR WAY A BANK CARD IS DEALT WITH.
high time we eliminated the third parties who just had to corruption, and about complaints over technology, i think if the government have planned it, it means that they have a plan also to teach farmers on the same system
Mkame and your mnister chendabwamba Emmanuel Mwintombela kwipaya, shut up your rotten govt made of a family tree from muhinga has lamentably failed long after 90 days, styopeti
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Text 1 for Demba Ba
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Text 3 for Didier Drogba
Text 4 for Christopher Katongo
Or Text 5 for Yaya Toure”
@ Peter Thank you very much for eloquently elaborating it for us.
@ Iye not everything revolves around football; there are more important pressing issues than football. Football won’t develop our country.
Wake up!!
@Peter, that is a concise description to shame the critics. I would also caution that we must ensure that these systems are foolproof from the IS point right up to the where the technology itself kicks in. That way we will not be transferring physical tampering to cyber-tampering. We need Cyber security guys on the ground at the same time. Way to go!
Good move, but how are you going to select those who receive the e-vulture? What selection process and system are you going to use? Are these e-vultures not going to be abused as the coupons in Kaunda’s time were? Please give us a well streamlined selection process.
Peace and Prosperity to mother Zambia.