The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture, Tahir Monguno, has canvassed the removal of agriculture from adherence to the Procurement Act to enhance food production.
Monguno made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Monday.
He opined that his suggestion stemmed from the fact that “we have a lot of problems keeping up with the rainy season”.
He held that budgeting and procurement process should take cognizance of the fact that agriculture is a time-bound engagement that is possible mainly during the rainy season.
He said it was only last week that the money allocated to agriculture was released in part, after the rainy season; so there is a challenge here, of meeting up with the Procurement Act.
Monguno said: “So, we are trying to bring up an amendment to the Procurement Act by which issues concerning agriculture would be removed from adherence to the Procurement Act, since the practice of agriculture is time bound.
“Once you did not do certain things within the rainy season, once it is over, it is over and the money budgeted for agriculture would be useless.
“So, we need to remove the procurement process as it concerns agriculture, from adherence to the Procurement Act.
“I intend to bring a Bill to the House to remove agriculture from that Procurement Act very soon.
“I have drafted the bill. I am waiting for it to be in gazette before it comes to the floor of the House of Representatives for first reading.”
Monguno enthused that despite this legal challenge, expectations of bumper harvest from agriculture would still be realised.
He said it will be possible because the Central Bank of Nigeria, through its borrowers programme, had expended a lot of money in rice production.
He said: “Farmers were able to access this fund. The area that is having problems is the Research Institutes which did not get their budget allocations until late last month.
“Therefore, it is going to be very difficult for them to comply with the Procurement Act before the end of the Budget year. That is the main problem.”
Monguno said Nigeria had enough fertile land for rice production.
He said: “With the advent of oil boom, we relegated agriculture to the background, because everybody now trooped to the cities for white-collar jobs and the people that were left in the villages to engage in agriculture are getting old.
“That had drastically affected our output and that is why government is trying to introduce a paradigm shift by looking at agriculture from a development and business platform, so that youths would get into agriculture as a means of livelihood.
“We have suggested that about N1.5 to N2 billion be earmarked for training and empowerment of youths in the 2017 budget to engage them fully.
“We also propose the recapitalisation of Bank of Agriculture so that our youths desirous of going into agriculture will be able to access loans at a single digit interest rate.”
Monguno said a major re-organisation was going on in the Bank of Agriculture and with proper oversight; the loans would reach the farmers.
He stated: “On Wednesday or Thursday this week, we are going for an oversight visit to the Bank of Agriculture in Kaduna to see how they are fairing.”
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