By: Sandally Sawo
The Gambia government has disbursed D500M to wipe out its debts to groundnut farmers.
The Gambian leader Adama Barrow on Friday convened an emergency meeting for discussion on the peanut farmers’ outstanding monies.
The emergency meeting was attended by the managing director of the National Food Security Processing and Marketing Corporation, representatives from the ministries of finance and agriculture and the Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG).
The outcome of this meeting was an instruction from President Barrow to the finance ministry and CBG for the immediate settlement of all the liabilities to the farmers.
A few hours after Friday’s emergency meeting, Secco presidents across the country could not hide their joy on Saturday as the Managing Director of the National Food Security Processing and Marketing Corporation, formally GGC, Muhammed Njie, announced the government’s disbursement of a whopping D500 million to settle all monies it owed farmers.
Despite injecting over D1 billion into groundnut purchases, GGC has come under huge pressure over the past few weeks due to the shortage of funds at its 94 seccos across the country.
Secco managers attributed the shortage of funds to the bumper harvest last cropping season due to the timely delivery of quality and affordable fertilizer to farmers.
The Agib Bank is spearheading the disbursement of funds based on the availability of funds from the government.
The GGC under the leadership of its current MD had made a radical shift from the tradition of credit-buying groundnut.
Announcing the disbursement of the D500M to the presidents of Corporative Producer Marketing Societies (CPMS) on Saturday, Managing Director Njie said President Adama Barrow “is very committed to the plight of Gambian farmers”.
According to Mr. Njie, when the President became aware of the frustrations of farmers, regarding the delay, he ordered an emergency meeting on Friday and instructed the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank to ensure farmers were paid forthwith.
He said the idea was to hand over the money to the secco managers in cheques but they were advised that Agib Bank should continue with the payment.
“All peanut farmers, whose stocks have not been paid for, will eventually get paid,” he assured.
Njie added that the disbursement will clear all the debt and even buy more groundnut.
“I want to encourage us to understand each other’s constraints. When things are difficult, we should always remember the good things that happened between us in the past. We should not allow others to come between us,” Njie emphasized. He said the corporation is open to engaging with anyone who has issues but advised farmers against making too much out of nothing, especially when they know that GGC’s doors are always open to them.
The GGC Deputy Managing Director, Lamin Sanyang, advised farmers against using the setback in paying their monies to score political gains.
“We should endeavor to be truthful at all times, even if the truth doesn’t favour us,” he said.
Amat Sarr, a CPMS President from NBR, said the GGC MD should be commended for redefining the relationship between farmers and the corporation. He said farmers should appreciate the changes brought about by Mr Njie.
Sarr informed the farmers that MD Njie had done everything humanly possible to ensure the money was released on Friday.
“But there are people going around asking about the groundnut season just to criticize the government but they are not talking about the fertilizer, which has been a great success,” he said.
He gave the reminder that the highest expenditure on groundnut before this year was less than D600, 000.
Alhagie Ceesay, Farmers Union vice president, said the unprecedented harvest of groundnuts this year can be attributed to the quality of fertilizer given to farmers by the government. He said the issue of the groundnut had nothing to do with politics and should not be politicized, adding that farmers should appreciate the efforts of the government and understand that the country is a developing country and doesn’t have all the means like other countries.