Africa-Press – Eswatini. A multimillion construction works opportunity has presented itself as the Eswatini Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise (ESWADE) funding has been approved.
The approved funding is for the cost of Lower Usuthu Smallholder Irrigation Project Phase II (LUSIP II). ESWADE said it intended that part of the proceeds of the funding to eligible payments under the contract for Construction of Sinyamantulwa potable water supply system, including water offtake, water treatment plant, pumping main water storage reservoirs, distribution reticulation and standpipes.They said the invitation for bids follows the General Procurement Notice (GPN) for this project that appeared online in March 4, 2016 on their website as well as the African Development Bank Group’s website.
ESWADE now invites sealed bids from eligible bidders for the execution of the works, this include the construction of a settlement reservoir treatment plant (vertical roughing and slow-sand filters), supply and Install 2 No. submersible pumps, design, supply, install, testing and commissioning of a 90 kW solar plant, supply & Install 1 No. steel storage tank (900 m3), and the supply and install 55KM PVC and NO.4 HOPE pipework ranging from O.D 250mm to 25mm. “Interested eligible bidders may obtain further information from and inspect the bidding documents at the office of ESWADE,” reads the tender document.
ESWADE further availed that a complete set of bidding documents may be purchased by interested bidders on the submission of a written application. They mentioned that the overall goal of the Lower Usuthu Smallholder Irrigation Project (LUSIP) II was improved standard of living of the population of about 13 460 in the Lower Usuthu Basin area of Eswatini through an environmentally and culturally sustainable process. The project has been mandated to extend the Main Canal South (MCS) to service irrigation blocks in the greater Matata area; a net irrigation area of 5 728 hectares (ha), consisting of about 5 273 ha of new irrigation area and 455 ha of existing irrigation to be brought under command of the LUSIP II canal system. The Minister of Agriculture Jabulani Mabuza said the country was at the moment, not able to supply the market because local farmers were not able to reach the target.
Touring
On Friday, while touring the stalls at Mangweni, the Minster urged ESWADE to diversify the land allocated for agricultural purposes to accommodate sugar beans in LUSIP II. The minister said the market would benefit local businesses as they would supply the product in large quantities, thus generating profit and stopping funds from living the country. He said this would also contribute to the economy of the country as it would reduce the levels of unemployment. The minister assigned ESWADE, to use the remaining unallocated land (about 300 hectares) to produce sugar beans as the market was available for the country. “The remaining land label as ‘other’ in LUSIP II should be utilised to address the shortage of beans in the country, we have a market internationally and it requires tonnes of beans annually,” he said. He further urged farmers to concentrate on scarce commodities as they have a better performance in the market.
Minimising
As a way of minimising the continuous rise of inputs in the sugar industry, the industry has initiated bulk input procurement facilities. This was mentioned by Minister Mabuza, during the SSG entrepreneur’s award competition in Mangweni. Mabuza said this would help in facilitating that growers can procure input at competitive prices as well as guarantee timely delivery, and correct specifications of input is assured, benefitting from the economies of scale. He said the Revolving Funds (RF) that were operated by the millers to assist growers in resuscitating their farms through replanting of old ratoon fields was also a very good and much needed initiative.
Mabuza said the eligibility to the RF is still limited to certain growers (Big Bend and Vuvulane). However, discussions were ongoing to extend the funds to all growers across the industry.
“The high energy costs render some of the farms unprofitable since all sugar cane production is done under irrigation. the technical services is facilitating the adoption of energy saving practices like the installation of solar energy through working with services providers and financiers to ensure that growers can be assisted when installing solar energy panels,” added the minister.
Mabuza also mentioned that the government and the industry were working closely together to ensure that water security was achieved to counter the effects of climate change which come with erratic rainfall patterns such as extended drought periods and heavy rainfall. He said there was a high level committee that was driving this initiative on building more water storage dams. ESWADE said they had allocated 4 000 hectares for the production of sugar cane, 500 hectares for banana, 400 hectares for maize and 300 as other agricultural projects.
ESWADE said they would be focusing on a variety of produce, depending on what the market demands at that particular time.
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