Funding call made as CIC meets minister

Business

ALL funds for coffee development must be channelled through appropriate institutions, according to the Coffee Industry Corporation Limited board of directors.
This message was relayed by Patrick Komba to Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Benny Allen and vice-minister Henry Ame during a meeting with the CIC board in Goroka last Thursday.
Komba is a coffee processor and trader of the Wapenamanda coffee factory. He is also a lead partner of CIC’s productivepartnerships in agriculture project taking part in coffee rehabilitation of coffee gardens with farmers in Enga.
“We already have a PPAP coffee modality working well with effective reporting and governance system as per co-financiers World Bank’s stringent guidelines,” he said.
“Funds should be redirected to the PPAP project management unit to manage rehabilitation of rundown coffee plantations.
“We should not reinvent the wheel.”
He said the department was the only body responsible for agriculture development which CIC came under.
“It seems everyone is now becoming an expert in agriculture and coffee since the government as per the Alotau Accord Two is putting money into the agriculture sector,” he said.
The Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry under its cooperative society is reviving rundown coffee plantations.
In an earlier report, the chairman of CIC’s productive partnerships in agriculture project,  Ian Mopafi, said the modality could deliver government’s expectation.
“PPAP can address rundown plantations as long as the people reallocate the land into smaller blocks,” he said.
Mopafi is also a coffee trader in Eastern Highlands.