Again, Buhari Repeals Another Jonathan’s Program

In another move, a program of former President Goodluck Jonathan has suffered a set-back as President Muhammadu Buhari has scrapped the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme, replacing it with with the Agricultural Inputs Mechanisation and Management Services (AIMMS).

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, who made the disclosure on Monday, said the development will come into effect in June.

The minister spoke on the achievements of the current administration in the agriculture sector in three years.

GES was introduced by former President Goodluck Jonathan through the then Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwunmi Adesina.

Before now, the Buhari administration has the Presidential Special Scholarship Scheme for Innovations and Development (PRESSID) initiated by the immediate past government.

Ogbeh said the AIMMS would enable farmers to get subsidised and quality inputs, adding that service providers will be on ground to render services to farmers in every Local Government Area.

The minister, who said that AIMMS might not be as cheap and subsidised as the GES, noted that scheme would eradicate the act of selling substandard fertilisers to farmers.

“We are creating a new arrangement called AIMMS – Agricultural Inputs Mechanisation and Management Services,” Ogbeh said.

“We are launching that before the middle of June so seed companies, fertiliser companies, chemical marketers will hand over inputs to distributors and farmers will have a place they can go and source for genuine inputs.

“Farmer may not like it now because it doesn’t look as cheap as the previous programme but we had a problem where the agro-dealers many of them were not delivering but were making claims.

“I will rather that farmers are sure of what they are getting.

“They will get the service and they will realize soon that whoever sells them fake fertilisers and chemicals, they can trace, because a lot of fake fertilisers are being sold by a few people, who are not authorised to blend fertilisers, but who are doing it as a flight by night business.’’

On why the government repealed the GES scheme, Ogbeh said, “I found on arrival that I owed N67 billion on GES claims and my budget was N33billlion as at then.

“I couldn’t pay and then the agro-dealers were demonstrating in front of my office. They even wrote that I had stolen N2billion from their money, they complained.

“I said that we can’t pay a debt of N67 billion which is twice my ministry’s budget and still continue with the programme.

“When we came in, some state governors said they had no money to pay their counterpart support of 25 per cent for GES, some of them said they couldn’t continue because the economy had crashed.

“Farmers don’t have to worry; we have their interest at heart.

“AIMMS will be easier for us to handle this way than for us to pay people who do not deliver but come to us with fake claims asking us to pay huge sums of money.’’