EU donates vehicle for agriculture

THE European Union (EU) handed over 21 motor vehicles
worth about 1.4bn/- to spur productivity and
competitiveness in the country's agricultural sector.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Dr
Servacius Likwelile, received the vehicles for distribution to
five institutions that work on various projects under the EU
funded Trade and Agriculture Support Programme.
The benefiting institutions include Tanzania Coffee
Research Institute, Tanzania Cotton Board, National Fish
Quality Control Laboratory, Tanzania Bureau of Standards
and Tea Research Institute of Tanzania.
Speaking at the hand-over ceremony, the Acting Head of
Delegations of EU in Tanzania, Mr Tom Vens, said the
programme aims at increasing farmers' income through
better access to markets.
"EU is committed to supporting capacity development for
better compliance with market development in terms of
quality and standards and strengthen value chains linking
smallholder farmers to market in a view to increase
productivity, competitiveness and income," said Mr Vens.
Mr Vens said that they expect the assets will contribute to
the achievement of the programme's objectives and
facilitate reaching out to the final beneficiaries who are the
smallholder farmers.
The upshot is to see them benefit from the results of the
research and development efforts pursued under the
programme.
On his part, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of
Finance said his ministry and EU Delegation jointly
procured the vehicles in order to benefit from economies of
scale instead of each institution procuring its own motor
vehicles.
"We believe that the vehicles we have handed over to the
institutions will be used appropriately in order to achieve its
intended objectives," said Mr Likwelile.