ESP approvals include cocoa: Dentana

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

Part of the Economic Stimulus Package (ESP) approvals completed includes ‘cocoa farmers’ as well.

This is according to the Chairman of the ESP Committee and Ministry of Finance and Treasury (MoFT) Permanent Secretary (PS) McKinnie Dentana when asked during this week’s nationwide talk-back show if whether cocoa farmer’s applications once approved will be uploaded as well on website.

Mr Dentana in response said the approvals already completed include cocoa farmers, copra farmers plus all other remaining sector including vegetable farmers and also piggery at provinces.

“Yes part of the approvals completed include cocoa farmers, copra farmers plus all other remaining sector including vegetable farmers as well and also piggery at our provinces,” said Dentana.

A total of 3, 431 approvals have been awarded under the ESP.

The Chairman of the ESP Committee said they have completed the ‘first round’ of approvals on every sector under the ESP as there are up to around 2,123 approved recipients already uploaded and 1,300 are expected to be uploaded later this week and next week.

To note, Mr Dentana said the ‘second stage’ of the process is to do reviewing and monitoring of approved recipients on which they have scheduled it to start at April.

“We give time to recipients, they receive their support now from January, February and March, and hopefully by April they should start their operations. So we scheduled to commence review and monitoring and reporting of the recipients to start in April up to June. This is so that report can be produced before audit can take place around the third quarter of this year,” said Dentana.

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