Ministry of Agriculture Permanent Secretary Green Mbozi has disclosed that government has awarded Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia-NCZ a contract to supply 47, 338 metric tonnes of D Compound fertilizer in the 2022/2023 agricultural season.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Mbozi said Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia will supply fertilizer to Copperbelt, Central and Lusaka provinces in the upcoming season.
Mbozi mentioned that because Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia is a parastatal, the Company does not bid for a tender to supply fertilizer and government just gives the company an invitation to supply a quantity of fertilizer that it thinks the Company can produce.
He explained that after the Company carried out an assessment, it established how much D Compound fertilizer it is capable of supplying in the 2022/2023 agricultural season which is 47, 338 metric tonnes.
“For reasons which I don’t understand, in the past they were being given to supply small quantities and over time the state of the plant deteriorated so this year they are still trying to rehabilitate the plant. We asked management and it was their own assessment that this year they would just produce about 50, 000 metric tonnes and that’s why we went to look at what was to be distributed in terms of D Compound for Central, Lusaka and Copperbelt and this came to 47, 338 metric tonnes”, he said.
