By Adia Jildo
The chairperson of information committee in the TNLA has called on the government to have a political will towards improving the agricultural sector to boost food production and fight hunger.
John Agany was addressing parliamentarians at the launch of (Parliamentary Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition) citing that the new government has not brought in policies hence affecting the operation of the sector.
“We must have a working political will in the government of South Sudan. The government of South Sudan must take lead in funding the agricultural activities,” he said.
He said the act shows reluctancy as donors tend to think the ministry is unserious therefore taking back their funding.
“Agricultural ministry and other ministries must have a working policy,” he said citing “Former ministry in the government had working policies but this government now at work, never brought any policy to the National Legislative Assembly.”
Agany said absence of working policy limits the sector from being funded to carry out their activities citing corrupt officials in the ministry.
Agany called on the Ministry of Agriculture to have policies so that the government can easily allocate a budget to fund its projects.
He said the government has been relying on humanitarian agencies instead of the government implementing its duties and leaving the humanitarian organizations to supplement it.
“Due to lack of political will from the government, they sometimes return the money back because they say that we are corrupt, and indeed, we are,”
“If we are not corrupt, why don’t we support the agricultural sector by ourselves and the partners just supplement it,” he added.
He called on the government to allocate a portion of the crude oil to the agriculture sector for months to generate income for agricultural activities.