Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE National Service (JKT) has saved about 8bn/- in an ambitious project for one of the biggest irrigation schemes in the country. The project is being implemented using young patriotic men and women at 837 Camp, located at Chita Village in Mlimba District, Morogoro Region.
According to Acting Camp Commandant Maj Evergreen Bartazal, if the project was carried out through contractors, it would have chopped from the state coffers about 12bn/-. He said, through using experts within the army and youth at the Chita Camp, upon completion, the robust project will cost about 4bn/-.
The irrigation scheme, among other activities, deals with rice farming of about 2,500 hectares, and the project will be able to feed the army countrywide with an excess being reserved in the National Food Reserve Agency to feed the community. According to Maj. Bartazal, the scheme will, apart from feeding the army camps in the country, equally feed the community surrounding the area.
The project is part of a scheme dubbed Strategic Agriculture, Pastoralism and Fishing, initiated by the Chief of the National Service, Maj. Gen. Charles Mbuge. Maj Gen Mbuge formed a special committee after a directive from the executive that instead of depending on funds from the treasury to feed the army, it was high time for JKT to initiate projects that would see the army feeding itself for 100 per cent as well as feeding the country in excess of the produced food.
The committee, under the chairmanship of Col Hassan Mabena, who doubles as JKT head of administration, started with emergency agriculture in 2019 but now, it is eyeing to have 28,000 hectors by 2024/2025. In having the target met, JKT signed an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture on February 26, last year, which will see the country having enough raw materials to fulfill the ambitious plan for industrialisation by 2025.
In expanding rice farm at Chita camp, Maj Bartazal said there were about 150 acres of rice seedlings that were researched by Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (TARI), which would be planted in different JKT farms as well as distributed to farms owned by Tanzanian communities.
On his part, the acting Commander of Operation for Irrigation Infrastructure, Maj Mbaraka Magogo, said the ongoing project at Chita camp was equally being implemented in collaboration with the Tanzania Irrigation Commission.
According to him, the scheme was progressing well and that the army was well prepared to ensure that the entire infrastructure was completed on the scheduled time to have the targets met.
