Yam export committee needs FG’s financial support – Chairman

The Chairman, Technical Committee on Nigeria Yam Export Programme, Simon Irtwang, has said that the committee needed the Federal Government’s financial support to enable it to carry out its assignment effectively.
Irtwang said this in a phone interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, on Monday.
According to him, the committee members had been using their personal funds to sustain the activities of the committee.
“The committee is being run with our meagre resources and times are getting harder by the day.
“You will notice that there has not been any yam export after the launch of the programme and the trial run shipment in 2017.
“The committee has been putting strategies together to surmount the challenges encountered during the trial run yam export.
“And this entails moving from one location to another and consultations with many organisations, as well,’’ he said.
Irtwang recalled that the technical committee once had a crucial meeting to attend outside its location, adding, however, that he could not attend the meeting due to paucity of funds.
“If money were  available, we would have gone for the meeting, which was important for our plans to carry out another yam export in the first quarter of this year,’’ he said.
Irtwang said that the funding constraints notwithstanding, the technical committee was required to keep up with the current tempo and meet its yam export targets for 2018.
He said that the yam export initiative was being used as a test case, adding that, as soon as it was perfected, it would be replicated with regard to other agriculture produce.
NAN reports that the committee had earlier said that its target, in 2018, was to export 480 tonnes of yam to the United Kingdom and United States if America.