By Elia Chibwe

Lilongwe, September 4: The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture has revealed that the Shire Valley Transformation Program requires significantly more funding to be completed within the scheduled timeline.

In a separate interview with media after Parliamentary session on Wednesday, in Lilongwe, Vice Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Ulemu Chilapondwa highlighted that the committee is happy with tremendous progress of the project, however more funds are needed to speed up the project.    

"We are very happy and impressed with the tremendous progress. About 96 percent of the construction over the 6 km stretch is complete, which gives us hope that the project is indeed moving forward.

"However, the committee also discovered that the project requires significantly more funds to avoid delays. This will ensure it is completed on time, allowing farmers to begin accessing it as planned," Chilapondwa said.

He urged government to be committed on funding the project as one way for preventing stoppages of the project.

"In our report, we urge the government to ensure that funds are provided promptly to prevent any interruptions or delays in progress. Timely funding is crucial to completing the project on schedule,” he said.

He said first phase is expected to be completed in December so that farmers should start growing crops along the stretch.

In his report, Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Sameer Suleman said the program aims at increasing productivity and commercialization of households in Shire Valley and improve sustainable management of utilization of natural resources.

He urged government to ensure that beneficiaries would also be able to benefit from the subsidized irrigation materials.

"The committee will be happy if beneficiaries would also be able to benefit from the subsidized irrigation materials such as solar pumps in order to put the project in good use," he said.

According to Suleman beneficiaries around the project area are estimated to be 279,550 which is 60,772 households and the project aims at providing irrigation to over 43,000 hectares through phase construction of new gravity fed irrigation scheme to 27,600 hectares of agriculture land.

He also indicated that the program is being done by government with support of World Bank and African Development Bank.