Agriculture Ministry says rigid measures in place to account for resources

By Nakinskie Robinson 

  

Amid mounting concerns about accountability and transparency in state entities, the Ministry of Agriculture says rigid checks and balances have been established to ensure expenditure and other resources are accounted for.

 

Portfolio Minister, Floyd Green, says all resources distributed by the ministry to farmers under the Hurricane Beryl relief initiative can be accounted for. 

 

"We can be having this discussion with raw numbers and not just say that we helped some farmers, and I can break down in each area in terms of how much farmers have been helped and what they have received," he insisted.

 

Mr. Green said the ministry has also been able to gauge and can quantify the amount of crops restored through its efforts. 

 

"Based on the seeds and based on the follow-up by our RADA team, they can say, all right, we would have re-planted 2,800 hectares in relation to our vegetable lines and we can identify where that is, we can tell you that farmer John Brown re-planted quarter-acre.... We can say that we've distributed 57,000 broiler chicks and based on the time that we would have distributed that, we can look at the mortality - cause there's always some losses - whether that is 10-15% and then we can say well, you know, six, seven, eight weeks later, this is what that would have amounted to in terms of production numbers," he maintained. 

 

Mr. Green was a guest Friday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106FM.