The initiative of the government in subsidising freight services for fresh produce through the transport freight subsidy scheme is continuing.
According to Secretary for National planning and monitoring Koney Samuel, the program is still running. He added that they worked on the first phase with the Bismarck Maritime Limited which was done around July and was 100 per cent subsidised by the government.
“We concluded that phase and we are in the second phase where we presented another K3 million to the same company that we had service level arrangement with and they are still continuing with the second phase of the program,” Mr Samuel said. “The government will decide as to whether we continue with the same arrangement going forward into 2021.”
He said at this phase, their team has finished an assessment on the impact and they appreciate that a lot of SMEs and farmers have benefited from this specific measure.
“Now the second scheme, we are looking at 75 per cent to 25 per cent. That means 75 per cent will be subsidised by the national government whilst the other 25 per cent will be put up by the farmers and business houses,” added Mr Samuel.
