THE BAR HAS BEEN RAISED
Truth be told, Bo HH has pushed the quintessential leadership bar too high and as per status quo with regards opposition Presidential aspirants, no one comes close one bit
Just a few minutes ago. I was following some program that just announced that aggregate maize output this marketing season is projected at an incredible 4.9m MT. This definitely is on account of deliberate policy interventions in Agriculture premised on expanding tilled land and improved yields through mechanization in addition to competitive floor prices that have incentivised farmers to grow maize.
The transformation from FISP to CATSP(Comprehensive Agriculture Transformation Support Program) played an incredible role in attaining these figures. This KPI is testament to achieving the dream of attaining 10Million MT of maize by the end of the fiscal year, 2031.
I’m further elated with the fertilizer industry which is one component that caused significant demand for forex outflows associated with importing this critical input and therefore impacting adversely on our BOP and Fx rates. To learn that our own NCZ with previous capacity of only 70,000 MT PA has now, after significant capital injection attained production capacity north of 430,000 MT, really excites my soul.
This in addition to what Wonderful group of fertilizer with their flagship United Capital Fertilizer has brought aggregate output to circa 1.2million MT against a current domestic demand of around 750,000 MT PA. The excess has resulted in Zambia exporting fertilizer within the region away from being net importers.
We can also talk of Bayer in Kabwe who post commissioning have become the biggest suppliers of seed maize in the region equally recording exports that result in forex inflows to further cushion our fx rates.
Colleagues, these are deliverables…. we cannot experiment with macabre leadership. This one we need to retain
