Total confusion in the fertiliser supply in 2013/2014 farming season
No show of fertiliser as planting season rapidly approaches
While private suppliers have already bought and distributed fertiliser to the districts across the country, the government has for the first time sourced a loan from Stanbic Bank to buy fertiliser from Saudi Arabia which is now stuck in Tanzania’s port of Dar es Salam.The PF government has bought the fertiliser under very unclear circumstances and there are fears of massive corruption in the purchase transport and distribution of the stocks.
With the planting season only a few weeks away, the government has asked farmers to wait for the fertiliser sourced from Saudi Arabia.The ship bringing the first 25,000 metric tonnes has just docked in Tanzania and will take a number of weeks to be offloaded and even more weeks to be transported to Zambia by rail before it is finally redistributed by trucks around the country.
Was buying from Saudi Arabia really cheaper?
While the government is claiming that the fertiliser imported from Saudi Arabia is cheaper than locally sourced one, the overhead costs such as freight and handling push the total cost higher than the local quotes.Government is yet to explain to the general public what the cost implications of importing the fertilizer from Saudi Arabia are.With the Christmas season around the corner it is important to note that transport service prices, especially out of the ports have increased and are likely to stay exorbitantly high until the coming year. What saving is government making by importing the fertilizer so late in the year?
Will this turn out to be the worst scandal adversely affecting next marketing season?
It is not known when the next shipment of the last 25,000 metric tonnes would arrive in the country to be distributed together with top dressing that has been manufactured by Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia.
The deal in which Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) of Saudi Arabia has been contracted to supply fertiliser by the PF government could turn out to be the country’s worst corruption scandal with the potential to adversely affect the next marketing season.
The delayed importation of 50,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser from Saudi Arabia, part of the consignment which is now marooned in Dar es Salam, would most likely delay the distribution of the input to farmers under the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP).
In March this year, the government announced that it had introduced new measures of accessing farm inputs which should have seen 25,000 metric tonnes distributed through the E-Voucher system.The minister of Agriculture through various dialogue had categorically stated that by October 2013 the government would ensure that all the farming inputs under the FISP program as well as the e voucher program would be positioned in all the districts before the onset of the rains.The suspension of this system has left farmers very vulnerable.
The Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ) was then contracted to produce 70,000 metric tonnes of D-Compound also known as basal dressing while 50,000 metric tonnes of Urea was to be sourced from the most unlikely country, Saudi Arabia.
The importation of fertiliser from Saudi Arabia, the first time ever, has raised a lot of concerns because the private companies which should have brought in 50,000 metric tonnes of Urea had their plans shattered after the government decided to directly engage itself in the deal.
In March this year, Luxon Kazabu announced a tender for the importation of Urea fertiliser and 17 companies, local and international, bid for the tender but it was cancelled by the late information and broadcasting services minister Kennedy Sakeni for unknown reasons.
With the fertilizer being a product of the nation why hasn’t government publicly put out tenders for local transport suppliers to participate in the uplift of the commodity out of Dar-e-salaam into Zambia?
Soon after the cancellation of the tender, a special committee comprising permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Secretary to the Treasury some members from the Ministry of Commerce as well as officers from the Office of the President-Special Division was constituted to oversee the importation of the fertiliser.
The special team was then sent to Saud Arabia to go look at the conditions and in July the team came back as they could not sign the Urea fertiliser deal because the company from which the commodity was being sourced was demanding upfront payment.
Panic at the last minute
The government has applied for express clearance of the stocks and the High Commissioner in Tanzania Judith Kapijimpanga was to make sure that the Tanzanian Revenue Authority had a waiver on the special clearance of the fertiliser stocks.Kapijimpanga has since written to the Tanzanian Port Authority seeking express and special clearance but the challenge the government is facing is how to transport the stocks as the Zambia Railways has given conditions that the government has failed to meet.
Farmers are demanding answers because as a country after experiencing 4 consecutive bumper harvests they feel we cannot afford to be a maize importer when we were a net exporter of maize in the region.
‘ We as the general public cannot sit back and watch the agriculture sector we worked hard and long to build as a nation go to waste,’one farmer said.
Source: Daily Nation,Concerned Farmer
Pf works well when there is confusion in the eyes of our minute opposition parties. If u see confusion then check yourself in at the hospital along Great east rd. Our enemies will fall, just like HH has become unpopular.
Indeed wasosa. a chemical reaction can also be speeded up with entropy.
Please let’s not as PF bring any confusion in the distribution of the fertilizer. How can you say marooned, yet again say the ship has just docked, then which port have you been to where it takes weeks to offload 25,000 tons of material, honestly speaking. Are you professing doom or what because you should know that it us the poor who will suffer, because it’s people like you who makes us suffer. Did you voice out when the contract was awarded, then now that it has arrived at port, then you workup and profess doom, no that’s not it. The items will arrive in every district because I believe that the government has put in all those structures in place, for it to arrive to its intended beneficiaries’ and not the MMD way, where it does arrive okay, but the beneficiaries, well ,I don’t have…
This is a criminal and tribal government. Period!
and which tribe are you say so, are some of your tribesmen not in government, or are there not holding some senior posts someway in the ranks, point out the criminal activities you have witnessed in the past two years. Can you prove yourself now, than just shouting in the place that you stuck in, a manhole, so to say. Empty tin!!!
I Think imwe balimichinga akalilo .. epafumine ama temper aya
This fertilizer is top dressing which is not needed now. It is all of you making negative comments that are corrupt or products of corruption. The issue is that you would rather be you and nobody else.
Change your thinking or continue dreaming with your UPND and get nowhere
@local zambian.. Thanks for the clearance,the above article while enlighting some points needing attention, it’s more on the negative and just againest the new procurement method where unreliable meddle men have been cut out thereby reducing the price of the commodity.znbc was showing technocrats sorting out fertilizer in dar at port making the above article obsolete.PF eyes on the ball.
Very rubbish article. Why this noise when the fertilizer you are talking about is top dressing which is applied in crops late December and in January? Sure even if its being bitter guys…why why ranting like a person who can not think. This is October and the fertilizer is in Tanzania, do you think by end of December this fertilizer wont be in Zambia? Really ba guy you are so dull, your article is so childish and showing that this time you are not benefiting from the fertilizer corruption of RB….shaaaa.
Peace and Prosperity to Mother Zambia.
Do not lie to people, the PF government is lagging way behind schedule. In the 2012/2013 agriculture season our farmers received Urea or top dressing fertilizers as late as February and this fertilizer wasn’t even hauled up at a port.For what use is this fertilizer if it is delivered after the application and maturity period?
I wanted to coment first but I have to charge my battery first. But not too late cos I am the 6th to coment first tym in history.
Zambians never went hungry until maize was introduced into the country by white settlers.Our staple food was once made from Cassava, Millet and Sorghum depending on the Province in Zambia. Maize has less nutrients and more calories than the traditional grains.Maize requires a lot of fertilization. Artificial fertilizer is very expensive, controlled by the government, and is bad for the soil. Its time we moved away from Maize.Maybe this disorganised PF is a blessing in disguise and Zambians will be forced to go back to what our ancestors ate.
This subsidised fertiliser will reach farmers in December.But by then rural roads will be impassable and muddy.
Not having the top dressing fertilizer at this time on a farm is suicidal if one is a farmer. For a national programme its criminal. This is because the rains have actually started in some parts of the country and no single grain of top dressing has arrived. Also make no mistake that Tanzania has no emergency products of their own including their fertilizer since they also run a similar programme, so do not expect margin from them. The lead time between docking and loading on TAZARA to Zambia can take as much as 1month then add internal accounting and distribution around the country to districts and then to farmers, this will be fertilizer for next year. The Minister of Agriculture who cancelled the evaluated tenders should be held to account if the farmers receive the fertilizer in late.