Maternal death: Zambian Minister decries death of journalist, Sithe Zulu, triggers review

NaijaAgroNet:

The Zambian Minister of Health, Dr Chitalu Chilufya, has decried the rate of maternal death recorded at Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital on the 10th of September 2017, following the demise of a journalist with Zambia Daily Mail, Sithembile Siwawa-Zulu, reports NaijaAgroNet.

In a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet, the Head Communications and External Relations at the Ministry, Stanslous Ngosa, quoted Dr Chilufya as expressing profound shock by this turn of events, declaring that “even one maternal death is too many.”

The Minister also ordered for a thorough maternal death case review, as well as a postmortem to determine the precise cause of death.

“All procedures should be done on the deceased and scrutinised to ascertain the possible events that could have led to her death,” Dr Chilufya said.

According to the MoH Spokesperson Dr Maximilian Bweupe, the deceased, Sithe was 29 years old, in her 2nd pregnancy when she underwent a caesarian section due to fetal distress on the 8th September 2017.

“Fetal distress is when the fetus does not receive adequate amounts of oxygen during pregnancy or labour. It is oftentimes detected through an abnormal fetal heart rate,” Dr. Bweupe explained.

As said by Bweupe, the deceased became breathless after taking a bath on Sunday morning, after, which the condition rapidly deteriorated before she passed on despite efforts to resuscitate her.

“Meanwhile, the Minister has offered utmost condolences to the bereaved family, friends, and the media fraternity. May her soul rest in eternal peace,” Bweupe prayed.

Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops

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Build farmers capacity, increase efficiency – Lubinda

NaijaAgroNet:

The Zambian Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Given Lubinda, has stressed the importance for building farmers’ capacity on the continent, NaijaAgroNet reports.

He gave this position at an address to the just concluded World Farmers Organisation (WFO) General Assembly in Livingstone, Zambia, saying that building farmers capacity it will increase efficiency in the agriculture sector.

“Africa is home of the small scale ‪farmers poors that create wealth, and feed the world,” Lubinda said.

Farmers, the Minister said, need to develop the right skills and knowledge needed to effectively improve their capacity.

“A secure access to the land, ownership and control over land, access to productive resources and inputs, including modern technology, markets, inputs and financial resources are essential elements to enable farmers to improve agricultural efficiency and productivity,” Lubinda said.

The farmers, minister further said, need to develop their agricultural management and marketing skills to efficiently strengthen their entrepreneurial skills.

“In this respect, agricultural extension and advisory services are increasingly seen as a key means to build farmers’ capacity,” the Minister said.

These services, Lubinda pointed out, help farmers deal with risk and change, by providing options and capabilities to make the right choices at the right time.

“The services assist rural actors to share technology and practices, and support farmers to acquire a better position in value chains and markets,” Lubinda said.

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Zambian govt suspends e-voucher system for farmers

Anthony Nwakaegho/NaijaAgroNet

The Zambian Minister for Agriculture and Livestock, Bob Sichinga said that the Zambian Government has suspended the implementation of the e-voucher system that was supposed to be used for small-scale farmers in accessing subsidised inputs under the Farmer Inputs Support Programme (FISP) due to inadequate logistics, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Bob Sichinga said the e-voucher which is an electronic system was set to be piloted in 10 districts this year and needed proper preparations by the Government and private suppliers before being implemented.

NaijaAgroNet noted that the government announced last year that it would use the electronic system for distribution of part of the subsidised inputs under the FISP as a pilot programme to replace the current scheme which benefits 900,000 small-scale farmers.

Sichinga explained during the launch of the ZNFU Lima scheme in Kabwe that about 241,000 out of the 900,000 under the FISP were expected to be covered by the electronic system before rolling out the programme to the whole country as the e-voucher system requires that private agro business houses have electronic register of the 241,000 farmers as well as electronic voucher, while farmers needed to have either a phone or a computer.

The scheme according to Minister Agriculture and Livestock required the Ministry of Agriculture to create a redemption fund which would be recovered by the private suppliers once the farmers acquired the inputs in their respective districts.

 “I have a computer background and when I looked at what had been prepared, I was not satisfied that we had a register of the 241,000 farmers; I was not satisfied that each of the targeted districts had telephone communication to send messages. I was also not satisfied that there was sufficient capacity to reach all the 241,000 farmers and because of this, it was not possible to implement the e-voucher system because even the ministry did not even have computers,” Sichinga said.

He, however, assured that his ministry was keen to implement the electronic system once all the necessary logistics and training had been done for all stakeholders including the private suppliers.

 NaijaAgroNet

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