Youths bemoan e-voucher drawbacks

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 08:44:42 +0000

By MUYANI SHINJABALE

YOUTH in Action for Sustainable Development (YASD) has bemoaned the inefficiency of the e-voucher system in rural areas in the country.

YASD Programmes Manager Zebedy Lukwesa said it was advisable to revert to the old system and find measures to empower small-scale farmers in the country.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Lukwesa said he was aware that the old system had a number of culprits who were stealing farming inputs but the current system of the e-voucher was not much of an improvement either.

“The e-voucher system is not working well in rural areas for farmers because they are receiving inputs very late. It is very sad to witness that this is when most farmers are receiving D compound for this farms.

“As YASD we were just in Luapula this week and the situation there is not good at all because it was not doing the farmers any good,” he lamented.

Mr Lukwesa suggested that the e-voucher should confined to urban areas instead of rural areas.

He urged the minister of Agriculture to try and consider ways of improving the e-voucher system as it was a good initiative That had not been handled well especially in rural areas.

“How are we going to have a bumper harvest when inputs are not delivered on time because farmers in rural areas, especially Luapula have taken farming seriously and right now it is their means if earning a livelihood.

“They need to take their children to school and feed their families because currently there is no fish now in the lakes,” Mr Lukwesa bemoaned.

He therefore, appealed to the government through the Minister of Agriculture Dora Siliya to go on ground and see what was happening in the most remote areas.

The minister, he said would then personally see the challenges that most small scale farmers had to deal with and afterwards come up with a better solution to help out.