AFJP Farmers Grant: Alerts rain for the Enumerators of FMARDPace AFJP Farmers’ Grant

The month of August 2022 has been a season of Alerts for the Enumerators of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Agric For Food and Job Plan Project (FMARDpace AFJP).

The payment which commenced from the first week of August 2022 is coming after many months of agitation for delayed payments of data capture activities carried out by the engaged Enumerators of the FMARDPace AFJP Farmer’s Grant Project since 2020.

The ministry had in a memo dated 8th August 2022 announced it has disbursed funds for the final payment of the Agriculture for Food and Jobs Plan (AFJP) Enumerators for farmer-farm registration carried out between 2020- 2021 across the 36 States and FCT.

The National Coordinator of AFJP, Dr Andrew Kwasari, in the memo noted that the payment, which commenced on Friday 5th August 2022, was for valid surveys submitted by the enumerators during the enumeration exercise.

Describing the conduct and impact of the FMARDpace AFJP Enumeration exercise, Kwasari stated that “at the State level, the enumeration exercise was supervised by the Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) State Programme Managers who worked with the ADP Supervisors (Master Trainers) in each of the 774 Local Government Areas in the 36 States and FCT to ensure the timely registration of smallholder farmers in their communities”.

“The farmer-farm registration exercise helped register over 6 million smallholder farmers. Using the data collected by the enumerators, cash subsidies were provided to over 1 million vulnerable smallholder farmers adversely impacted by the covid-19 pandemic to prevent food scarcity in Nigeria”, Kwasari added.

The AFJP National Coordinator disclosed that as of May 2021, a total amount of N1,097,408,750 had been paid to Enumerators, Master Trainers and State Programme Managers in four batches of payment for the farmer farm registration exercise.

Kwasari hinted that other payments made in the recent disbursement include the payment to Enumerators for soil sample collection, soil laboratories for soil testing; and ADP Master Trainers for March to November 2021.

Since the announcement by the Ministry, it has been rains of Credit Alerts for the AFJP Farmers Grant Enumerators.

Just this morning, Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB) keyed into the FMARDpace AFJP Enumerators Payment garlour as they awoke the AFJP Enumerors with lump cash sums as First Bank, United Bank of Africa etc have done within the previous week.

Some of the Enumerators who shared their Credit Alert Slips were smiling home with N250,000 to N800,000 while some who claimed under-paid received as low as N10,000.

A description of the current payment to the AFJP Farmers’ Grant Enumerators stated that the payment is the 6th Trench Outstanding Balance due to Enumerators as 2nd 50% Payment for Activities covering August 2020 to January 2021.

Expectedly, from the breakdown of outstanding Payments to be made to the AFJP Farmers’ Grant Enumerators as released by the Mnistry, more payments will be to the Enumerators to cover for all Trenches of half payments and Full Payments, according to the design of the payment system.

Recall that it was clearly stated at the outset of the AfJP project, that the Enumerators would be paid the sum of N500 per each successfully upload and accepted “work done” in two trenches: half of earning in a week to be paid at the end of every week and remaining halves of the duration of the project to be paid as a whole sum, one month after the completion of the project while planning for legal action.

However, all payments are currently being made as outstanding balances to the FMARDpace AFJP Farmers’ Grant Enumerators.

Originally published by myinfoclock