TANZANIA: ONLY the Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) has approved strategies for the production, marketing, and promotion of its crops out of the four audited cash crop boards, the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) Mr Charles Kichere has revealed.
According to the recent CAG’s Performance Audit Report, which involved the TCB, Tea Board of Tanzania (TBT), Cashewnut Board of Tanzania (CBT), and Tanzania Tobacco Board (TTB), it is only TCB that undertakes its operations systematically.
“Except for the coffee board, none of the crop boards visited had an approved FiveYear Strategic Plan. This strategic plan would have incorporated targets from the National Five-Year Development Plan, Election Manifesto, Agricultural Sector Development Strategy, and other National and International Agreements,” reads the report.
The audit, which covered five financial years starting from 2018/2019 to 2022/2023, intended to assess if the Ministry of Agriculture, through the crop boards, has adequately regulated the production, quality, and prices of cash crops to ensure increased revenue and boost farmers’ incomes.
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The report alerted that the failure of other boards to have approved strategies for production, marketing, and promotion of their crops retards the country’s capacity to increase accessibility and availability of agricultural finance for investment, improve agricultural research and extension services, invest in market infrastructure, input, and supply.
However, the performance audit report disclosed that the coffee board’s strategy lacked key performance aspects such as markets, production quantities, and intended qualities.
“Because of the inadequate strategies to guide cash crop production, crop boards lacked consistent planning on the amount to be produced yearly, as they lacked a guided benchmarking,” the report reveals.
The report observed that the audited crop boards, except TCB, were not actively planning and engaging in marketing and promoting cash crop activities.
“As it stood, the leading cash crop that had been able to attend various local and international fora for marketing respective cash crops was the Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB),” reads the report.
According to the report from the list audited cash boards, the lowest regulatory board to participate in various local and international marketing events is the Tea Board of Tanzania (TBT). The report also pointed out that TBT lacks a comprehensive plan for undertaking market research.
“In addition to that, crop boards that were visited had a limited number of markets due to a lack of strong market strategies and market intelligence to search for new markets,” he noted.
Moreover, the report insisted that there was no system set out to establish the cost of crop production, which could be used as a criterion for setting up the indicative selling price. To navigate the country’s cash crop boards’ shortcomings, Mr Kichere highlighted several recommendations, including the Ministry of Agriculture, through its crop boards, developing a comprehensive system that covers all key aspects as per the business processes of the respective crop boards.
He emphasised that the comprehensive system should be updated immediately before the start of the new cropping season to consider the changes that occurred. Mr Kichere urged the Ministry of Agriculture to establish a functioning quality management system which should be integrated into respective strategic plans and annual plans and reported regularly.
He urged the Ministry of Agriculture to collaborate with the Ministry of Industries and Trade to ensure that there is an integrated price intelligence to obtain the most competitive indicative prices proportional to the world market price.
The country’s Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP III) spanning from 2021/2022 to 2025/2026 aims to increase traditional cash crops’ production, quality, and productivity to about 1.6 million metric tonnes by 2025/2026 from 794,000 metric tonnes of 2019/2020.
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