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Yeukai Karengezeka-Herald Correspondent
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development has been praised for spearheading the 100-day cycle for projects that impact on livelihoods of people.
Secretary in the office of the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs and Monitoring Implementation of Government Programmes, Ms Fananai Madambi, yesterday applauded the ministry after receiving of an update from the Ministry’s permanent secretary Dr John Basera on the achievements made on projects being implemented under the 100-day-cycle following the adoption of the new software executive electronic dashboard and the whole of the Government performance management system.
These allow the Ministry to monitor progress very tightly and take swift action if anything appears to be falling behind.
Some of the projects include capacitation of extension officers where they received 2 600 more cycles for mobility purpose and buying them 6000 tablets for their training role. The tick-grease programme that reduced the January disease by 47 percent was seen as a significant success with farmers getting their grease on time.
The ministry already hit the target of US$8,2 billion a year as the industry value rose by 36,2 percent to US$8,19 billion.
“We are having these meetings with all ministries. We noted that ministries were focusing more on the strategy that is 100-day-cycle plan without placing emphasis on the aspect of priority projects,” she said.
“However, we are very impressed with this ministry’s approach in doing projects that are people centric. It is a whole ministry approach where they also have committees which assess the implementation of flagship projects.”
Ms Madambi said projects that Government is undertaking are meant to benefit the people and positively impact their lives and communities.
“We are saying a project should be of a priority from the point of the recipient rather than priorities from the implementers’ point of view. The projects must be people centric, of high impact, have a budget, have low risk and should be achievable. Everyone should be on board,” she said.
She added that Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development is driven by a committed leadership hence paying the dividends.
Dr Basera said under livestock the national average beef cattle off-take increased from 9 percent in 2020 to 10 percent in 2021 with overall beef production (formal and informal slaughters) increasing by 30 percent from 50 000 tonnes in 2020 to 65 000 tonnes in 2021 against a national target of 90 000 tonnes by 2025.
“At least 1 495 smallholder dairy farmers benefited from Presidential Input Scheme to establish one hectare each of maize for silage making to enhance milk production.
The national pig herd increased by 13 percent from 278 106 pigs in 2020 to 314 335 in 2021.”
Dr Basera also highlighted that Tsetse Control Services successfully implemented tsetse control operations, using odour-baited and insecticide treated targets, that were mounted over 4 220 square kilometres in Gokwe north, Kariba, Hurungwe and Mbire districts.
A total of 16 880 targets were deployed at 4 targets/square kilometre.
This resulted in the eradication of tsetse from 700 square kilometres and suppression of tsetse populations in another 720 square kilometres.
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