North Western Province has achieved much in 2020 – Mubukwanu

North Western Province Minister, Nathaniel Mubukwanu says despite the country facing the challenge of Covid-19 in the year 2020, the province has recorded significant achievements in various sectors.

Speaking at a press briefing over the performance of the province for 2020, Mr Mubukwanu said major successes were recorded in various sectors such as non-tax revenue generation, water and sanitation, social protection, fisheries and livestock development among others.

Mr. Mubukwanu said massive progress was recorded in Social protection where the province had significant achievement.

He said during the year 2020 the province targeted 55,209 households’ beneficiaries and a total of 47,177 households benefited under Social Cash Transfer program, adding that a total amount of K11, 844,568.45 that was disbursed.

“So we have recorded massive progress in the areas of none tax revenue generation; social protection we have significant achievement, ” Mr. Mukwanu said.

He said in agriculture, under the 2019/2020 farming season the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) purchased 41,940 metric tonnes of maize from the farmers representing 60 percent of the total targeted 70,000 metric tonnes.

And Mr. Mubukwanu said during the 2020/2021 farming season, the province implemented FISP under direct input supply in all the 11 districts.

He said the province has 62,276 farmer beneficiaries adding that all of them deposited their K400 contributions representing 100 percent.

Mr. Mubukwanu said out of this a total of 37,366 are women and 24,910 are men.

He said the province received 25,474 metric tonnes of all the allocated input by October, 2020 and 97 percent of the farmers under FISP have already accessed their inputs.

“During the 2020/2021 farming season the province implemented FISP under direct input supply in all the 11 districts. The province has 62,276 farmer beneficiaries. Out of this, a total of 37,366 are women and 24,910 are men. The province received 25,474 metric tonnes of all the allocated inputs by October, 2020”, Mr Mubukwanu said.

And under Fisheries Mr. Mubukwanu said the province produced 9.5 metric tonnes of fish out of the 15 metric tonnes target.

He said the citizen economic empowerment (CEEC) supported the establishment of two commercial fish hatcheries in Solwezi and Mwinilunga districts under the aquaculture seed fund program.

Meanwhile under women empowerment program, Mr. Mubukwanu said a total of 2,084 women were empowered with productivity grants.

He said out of this total, 538 women were from Zambezi, 619 women from Manyinga, 611 from Mwinilunga and 316 from Ikelenge.

Mr. Mubukwanu has urged all the civil servants in the area to focus much more on the positive experience of 2020 and not on the challenges

“Our approach is not to focus so much on the challenges, our approach is to focus more on the positive achievements, the positive achievements have the capacity to encourage us to do more. So we build on positive vibes that we derive from our achievements”, he said.

Mr Mubukwanu said positive experiences should be the stepping stones to reach higher heights in the quest to serve the people better in the coming year 2021.