Nairobi, Kenya
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Mr Romano Kiome yesterday expressed his dissatisfaction with the Kenya Horticulture Competitiveness Project report saying that it was sidelining the real issues affecting the sector.
Speaking during the presentation of the results at Serena Hotel, Mr Kiome said that it wasn’t detailed and its contents were not adding value to the once booming sector.
“This report is not considerate of sensitive issues such as purchase parity between the selected sample countries, which is very important. The report also lack indicators of the reality in the ground, there are very many illegal taxations that our products are subjected to before they reach the market,” said Mr Kiome.
The government official was also keen to put blame on Kenyan youths for not utilizing grants set aside for agricultural projects.
“With my intervention, the Government allocated funds to various banks as credit guarantees for youths to get grants for agriculture oriented projects. To my dismay, most of these funds are still idle and we are having plans to get them back,” he said.
Equity Bank, which was allocated over Kshs 700 million issues horticulture farming funds at a 12% interest rate. It is the only bank that has so far put to use the money it was allocated by Government as credit guarantees for agricultural related borrowing by the youths.
The Kenya’s Horticulture Competitive Project (KHCP), which was launched in 2010, is meant to inform relevant stakeholders who to target in resource allocation and tap the same resources to projects where they are needed most.
It is also aimed at raising food security and nutrition. During today’s presentation of the report that covers the period of January to May 2012, a number of observations and recommendations were displayed, key among them was the need of Government’s intervention to reduce all forms of taxation that impact negatively on exports.
Other recommendations were the need of upgrading the irrigation system, introduce guiding food policies, focus research on developing labor-saving production and post harvest techniques and access potential markets and competitiveness of Kenya produce in Asia.
All in all, the report urged the Government to support the horticultural sector through incentives, more infrastructure development and stop letting the private sector steer the industry on its own.
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