ED Donates USD3.6M Worth Of Samsung Tablets To Extension Officers

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President Emmerson Mnangagwa last week donated 6 000 state of the art Samsung tablets to Agriculture Extension Personnel (popularly known as madhumeni in local coloquial) across the country.

The total value of the gadgets is a handsome USD3 660 000, with each tablet costing USD610.

The donation, handed over by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Professor Obert Jiri, started in Mashonaland east Friday, where 735 Samsung tablets were handed over to Extension officers at Marondera Provincial office.

On Saturday the following day, Professor Jiri was in the Mashonaland Central provincial capital of Bindura, where he handed over 758 more tablets to extension officers at Bindura Primary School Hall.

Addressing journalists after the handover ceremony, Jiri said the Agriculture Extension Officers are at the heart of the President and the whole nation, so it was prudent to provide tablets and digitalize their operations.

The former UZ lecturer stressed that the Government would soon dish out Netone lines as well as provide mobile broadband data to enable efficient communications between the Extension Officers and the Ministry.

“These are people at the heart of the President, they are also at the heart of our agricultural transformation agenda. We can’t achieve food security without this important change champion, so digitalizing their operations is critical for us to get authentic data.

“We give you these tablets to bridge the gap of communication barriers. You can even communicate with the ministry about what is happening in your provinces. We will hand over Netone lines, which we will also put data for efficient communications,” he said.

Professor Jiri also told the Extension Officers that the Ministry of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) is developing agricultural applications, hence the donated tablets will be of greater use in the modernization of the agricultural sector.

“This is just the beginning, so what’s coming next is loading this tablet with various agriculture applications, like the Vault Pundutso App, the Extension App, and all those applications will be loaded in your tablet to ensure the extension officers don’t lack anything,” he said.

Meanwhile, an Agric extension officer, Agnes Bungu, one of the beneficiaries of the tablets, applauded the President’s gesture, saying he and his colleagues would use the gadgets productively.

“I am happy with these gadgets, because they will instill efficiency in our job. The gadgets will also help us at the moment, where we are doing crop assessments, and also keep the data base needed in our wards,” she said.

The handover of high end Samsung tablets is not the first donation Mnangagwa has provided for extension officers, as in July 2020 he dished out 5 000 motorcycles to enable the extension officers to carry out their work more efficiently.