As part of the government’s medium-term plan to reach its vision of going rural, Prime Minister James Marape has recently launched the K2.3 billion agriculture medium-term development plan 2020-2022 which took a year to plan and design.
The Agriculture Department and the Department of National Planning and Monitoring worked on this development plan.
According to the Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL) secretary Daniel Kombuk, this is already an achievement after years of chaos. “The launching of this sector plan sends out signals that the agriculture sector is transforming,” he said.
He added that the plan was to bring back rural areas which were forgotten and neglected over the years. This was also to take minds off Port Moresby.
“We are on a mission to clean up the rooted corruption in the agriculture sector to restore its pride,” he said. “Under our leadership, the Agriculture Department is the first sector to have the plans align with the government’s plan and many more good things are in the pipeline.”
Kombuk added that there were many challenges to providing new developments in agriculture. Among them included sector coordination, management and unavailability of agricultural statistics and information.
But now, the sector and department agencies are now ready to provide these services. With the encouragement of Agriculture and Livestock Minister John Simon, they would continue to work towards rescuing the sector for the benefit of the people.
Kombuk added that in spite of the many outstanding matters to attend to, the stakeholders, farmers, and other people concerned may well rest assured that agriculture is well on its way to development and change.
“We took over a department that was scandal-ridden and listed as most corrupt sector of the government,” he said.“This department will no longer be on that list but will be transformed to its old glory days.”
