By Omar Bah
The Managing Director of the National Food Security, Processing and Marketing Corporation (NFSPMC), Muhammed Njie yesterday confirmed to The Standard that government has budgeted D2 billion to purchase groundnuts this year, twice more more than what was spent last year.
According to Njie, the D2 billion can finance up to 50,000 tons of groundnuts.
“We have already secured that D2 billion financing so we are very prepared,” he said.
He added that farmers can be assured that “we want to make this season a successful one since there is enough money to purchase their groundnuts”.
Groundnut price yet to be announced
Responding to a question on what the price would be this year, MD Njie said the president is responsible for announcing the price.
“We are yet to get information on the pricing but I understand there are consultations ongoing as soon as that is concluded the president will announce the price,” he said.
Last year, the government set the purchasing price at D38,000 per ton, a historically high rate designed to stabilise farmers’ incomes and discourage cross-border exports.
Secco managers
Commenting on a meeting with 105 Secco presidents and their support staff across the country, Njie said the meeting was organised to discuss the upcoming groundnut trade season with stakeholders, adding that the new season will commence on Monday.
MD Njie said his institution is planning to introduce a new digital payment system to ensure more effective and transparent purchase of groundnuts.
“We are going to use a handheld device that would be connected to the mobile money to ensure that there are as many cashless transactions as possible because cash is inherently risky,” he said.
He said digital innovation ensures transparency, accountability and it helps improve efficiency in business.
“We realised that last year they have embraced it and it serves as a learning point for us. That is why we incorporated this POS device that would automatically generate tickets that would be connected real time to our Enterprise Resource Planning System in our headquarters,” he said.
Responding to concerns raised by secco presidents over the NFSPMC decision to take over transport of the purchased groundnuts from them, MD Njie said the decision is aimed at ensuring that the transportation of the groundnut is not delayed.
Screening
The corporation has bought screening machines and generators for all Seccos across the country to ensure that there is proper screening of the groundnuts.
“We believe if you do things right that would help farmers and the government. I want you people to treat this meeting very seriously. We don’t want what happened last year to happen this year because if we made the farmers cry they would create noise for you and the government. That is not good.”
No credit
During the meeting with secco presidents, the NFSPMC’s Director for Strategic Development and Planning, Dr Thomas Roberts, informed them that this year the corporation is not going to tolerate credit buying.
