Credit Buying: Agric Minister Reacts

The SECY for Agriculture, Mr. Hassan Sallah called the editor over the holiday to react to our editorial. SECY said credit buying has been substantially reduced over the past few weeks. He revealed that as at now it stands at D45 m which will be reduced next week with the pumping of an additional D23 m. For the remaining, Sallah said, plans are afoot to clear all the debts by the end of April 2002. He also indicated that some 65; 000 tons were bought this year as against last year’s 43,000 tons. He even suggested that with the buying of 1000 tons of hand picked nuts the figure for nuts purchased this year could be put at 70,000 tons. He also declared that farmers “were indeed consulted about the closure of the season” but acknowledged that they did not mention it in the release sent to the media.

SECY Sallah seized the opportunity to talk about what he termed as significant developments in the groundnut sector. He revealed that Premier Agric’s mill in Buniadu is now decorticating 150 tons per day and the same performance obtains at the Kaur mill. On the oil mill, Sallah revealed that the current 75 tons being produced would be increased to 100 tons by next week. “With all these improvements, we will be able to handle 100, 000 tons by next year”, he promised. He added that the badges, which were in bad shape, are now being refurbished by a Senegalese company at a rate of five badges per week. He invited the media to go and have a glimse of the work being carried out.

On export, he said the storage tanks built would be directly delivering to the boats instead of what used to obtain. SECY Sallah also informed this paper that SAMAT heads for increased quality and quantity of HPS has now replaced the decorticating heads of the plant. And certainly the good news of it all: Sallah revealed that in six weeks time good refined Gambian groundnut oil will be available. A caller told this paper that Senegal this year produced 1.2 m tons of groundnuts but was only able to market 400,000 tons.

Culled from The Point newspaper of 27th march 2002