ALLEGATIONS levelled against the Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL) Ethel Frances have been submitted to the Leadership Code Commission (LCC), according to sources.
Sources claimed under Frances’ leadership, MAL was poorly managed, causing frustration among senior staff.
It’s understood that upon taking up the executive role, Frances promised to bring in reforms that will ensure a “highly productive” ministry.
She stated that working together with MAL’s management team, the immediate role was taking stock of the ministry’s performance in terms of its programmes and project implementation and to strategize to achieve more.
She boldly promised to develop a growth roadmap for the agriculture sector that would come from a whole of sector and institutional review but after a year in office there is still no roadmap in place.
“And in terms of implementation of development programmes and projects this year 2019 was the worst compared to previous years although funds were there,” the source said.
But Frances in her response to this stated that work on the development of that Roadmap has started with stock take, which was already shared by certain newspapers couple of days ago and a diagnostic survey.
“So let’s just wait for when that Roadmap will be ready and launched will we?” she added.
Meanwhile, MAL sources said there is still about 80% of development budget funds unused but the financial year is about to end
Although a good number of submissions from Agriculture officers from various departments to implement the approved work plans for 2019 and approved projects for coconut and cocoa rural farmers, Frances reported turned down most and giving a lot of “irrational reasons”.
By ANDREW FANASIA
