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Committee established to address budgetary shortfall for agriculture sub-agencies –Minister
Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha
Kaieteur News – A committee has been established to address the issues of budgetary shortfalls within the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA). Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha explained to Kaieteur News last evening that the shortfall of tens of millions of dollars in budgetary allocations has been discussed and rectified following a discussion between a committee from the MOA and officials from the Ministry of Finance.
According to the Minister, the team which consisted of the Permanent Secretary of the MOA, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), and the MOA’s planner within the Ministry of Finance met with the Ministry of Finance budget team.
Mustapha noted that “the MOA team put forward a plan on the amount of projects we have and how the money will be expended to add accountability of the funds we were requesting.”
Additionally, the Minister noted that owing their commitment to ensure accountability of expenditure, funds which were held up by the Finance Ministry were released.
“We used some of the funds which were released to address some pressing issues at the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA-ADA),” Mustapha added.
Following his assumption of office in August, Minister Mustapha highlighted a number of shortfalls had been discovered in the budgetary allocation for agencies under the MOA. These deficits have been found in the MOA’s sub-agencies, such as the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Agriculture Sector Development Unit, Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) and Guyana Sugar Corporation Incorporated, (GuySuCo).
At that time, the Minister had disclosed that a shortfall of $89 million was discovered in the budget of the NDIA, which contributed to several issues with projects under the NDIA.
“The issue led to farmers losing crops and livestock, 20 pumps and 21 excavators were found to be inoperable, with $23,842,320 owed to operators of equipment. With pumps and excavators inoperable, several farms and residents across the country experienced severe flooding,” the Minister said.
He noted that requests, which were lodged with the Ministry of Finance under the previous administration, went unheeded. Additionally, the Minister noted as a result of the shortfall, farmers of Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA-ADA) became affected by high rate hikes.
“These farmers were burdened by the steep hike in rates and rentals implemented by the APNU+AFC government. There are sixteen legal matters, before the High Court, for which the Authority is a named party,” the Minister had explained while expressing his commitment to address the issues.
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