Farming funding growth eyed

THE National Research Institute has urged the Government to allocate more funds to agriculture because most people depend on it.
Senior research fellow and programme leader Professor Eugene Ezebilo said the livelihoods of many people were linked to agriculture.
Ezbilo said the poor and the weakest in the society were often hit hardest by the impacts of natural disasters.
“With our research, it appeared that the government did not set aside the provision of relief materials in the event of natural disasters,” Ezbilo said.
“When provincial disaster offices requested funding to buy relief materials, it took the Government time before funds were released. This was partly because there was no allocation in the annual budget for disaster-related problems.”
Ezebilo said agencies involved in disaster relief
should ask the government to make more funds available.
“We will try to identify what possible reasons for not effectively implementing funding to make things work and from there we will be able to know the causes and fix them accordingly.”