Minister calls for change to reform agriculture sector

 THE National Government expects all agriculture commodities boards and agencies (CB&A) to implement the functional expenditure review (FER) recommendations to reform the agricultural sector.

Agriculture and Livestock Minister Tommy Tomscoll told heads and representatives of commodities boards and agencies that the implementation process of the FER recommendations “are not going to leave anyone unaffected”.

Speaking at a meeting of the sector’s leaders in Port Moresby recently, Tomscoll said: “It is important that we all must pay attention to what is going to be the outcome of it.” 

He said that excuses like “I was not consulted” and “I didn’t understand” were unacceptable.

“The government wants to ensure that the industry becomes efficient,” Tomscoll said. 

“We want to ensure that this industry is responsive to all the changes that are happening in the national and global environment.

“The agriculture sector is not isolated. It is part of a large economy so whatever changes that happen and occur in other sectors has an impact on this sector. This means that we have to have policies and a structure that is responsive and reacts immediately to changes outside.

He warned that if the sector did not change they may find themselves in dire straits with resource and funding.

Tomscoll said the government wanted to see returns on investment of resources that are injected into all sectors including agriculture.

He added that the state would not hesitate to pull the plug on sectors that do not produce returns. Tomscoll said the days of working separately to secure funding as individual organisations is over and the CB & A forum provides an opportunity to work towards a unified administrative structure or mechanism that works.

“I want us to find the most appropriate mechanism that will drive the sector,” he said. 

“This year we are going to make the change. 

“Firstly, we are going to shift into an organisational structure that is more or less the same as independent public business enterprises where all the boards will be owned by a new State company. They will all be subject to this one single state company. You will have your own board but your board will take and respond to this new state company.

“Secondly, we want to ensure that DAL more or less reflects the kind of structure, in terms of administration Act. These changes are going to happen – be assured. And the implementation will happen this year. I will take it to Cabinet in the first quarter of this year.”