By Aji Fatou Jammeh
The Network of Financial and Tax Reporters (NFTR) on Friday, 24th June 2022 organised for its members training and orientation on the progress of the Resilience of Organisations for Transformative Smallholder Agricultural project, dubbed ROOTS.
Held at National Quality Assurance Authority conference hall, the forum brought together 40 journalists, who were exposed to the operation of the ROOTS. This was meant to make them responsive in disseminating factual information about the project.
Mr. Abdoulie Nyokeh, President of NFTR, said the training availed journalists the opportunity to have in-depth understanding of the ROOTS project for better public sensitisation on the ongoing activities of the biggest agricultural value-chain project in the country.
“We must be reminded that the direct and indirect beneficiaries of the laudable project are taxpayers who are expected to pay taxes from their medium and long term investments, proceeds and benefits from multiple opportunities being offered by ROOTS projects,” he stated.
Muhammed MS Bah, President of the Gambia Press Union underscore the significance of the training and challenged participants to report on the impact of the project, pointing out that a lot of money have been pumped into the agricultural sector but most of these projects failed.
Mamour Jagne, the Director of ROOTS Project, hailed the network for complementing government’s efforts. He underscored the importance of the media, saying that one of the components of the project is citizen engagement through the press. “That is why we found it advantageous to meet with you.”
On the 80 Million Dollar ROOTS project, Jagne clarified that budget includes cash and kind contributions. The cash aspect is yet to be fully mobilised. Not all the donors are on board yet. So there is a funding gap as we speak. In fact, there has been a funding gap since the time of the launching of the project.”
He explained that the other components encompass literacy and numeracy activities for our beneficiaries, Gender Action Learning System (GALS), knowledge capacity development and communication, project monitoring and evaluation activities, staffing, vehicle operational and maintenance among others; that only 5% goes to personnel related issues, and that only 22 from the 80 million Dollars have so far been received.
The Director urged the media to ask the relevant questions because they are managing public funds, and that it is prudent for them to render account on how they are utilising the funds and how they are impacting on the lives and livelihoods of beneficiaries.