The Acting Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture Livestock, Forestry, Fisheries and Bio-Security (MALFFB), William Naviti, said business planning is a very important document that all government departments must develop annually.
Mr Naviti made the statement during the official opening of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) annual planning retreat on Friday last week.
He said the MALFFB has Corporate polices, overarching productive policies for productive sectors, which have expired and work is in progress to develop another one for the next four years, different sector policies under different department and other policies.
“These policies are translated to activities for implementation and that requires detail planning at the department level, to each division, activities and down to local farmers. Whatever happens at the farmers’ level reflects policies at the national level”, said Mr Naviti.
The MALFFB Business Plan that incorporates all Business plans from each department is still in draft, after Business planning for each sector, all senior officers will meet to finalize the Business Plans.
Mr Naviti stated that all officers have the opportunity to contribute to what is already in draft to ensure that ideas, reflect what is practical & realistic to achieve over the next 12 months.
“2020 is Vanuatu’s General Elections and the current Government has come up with some more priorities, that will happen in a short term, so while we are planning for long term activities, we need to consider what we can achieve in short term and it is important to prioritize activities, most times, too many plans but are not achievable”, said Mr Naviti.
He added that while planning, consider the fact that in some instances, the government can give in some plans, so plans must be flexibility to adapt to such situations, that means mobilizing resources to ensure changes.
He encouraged all officers to perform to a high standard as they will be expecting more pressure from upper level to perform, now that all DGs are currently on contracts, later on Directors on contracts & down the road, senior officers & eventually down to the cleaners will be contracted.
Photo supplied. Caption: Acting Director General of MALFFB William Naviti