The corruption which the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES), under which farmers across the country now receive their subsidized fertilizers and seeds via their mobile, hopes to eradicateis brewing its ugly head in Benue state as the agro dealers are alleging foul play by government officials.

The programme, which was created by the current government to subsidize the cost of agricultural inputs to farmers, has been bugged by controversies in the state, as the farmers have been kept on an endless wait for the list of agro-dealers approved to run the programme this year.

The delay, it was gathered,  has been due to disagreement over who should be on the list of approved agro-dealers for this year, as some of those who participated in the successful roll out last year have been allegedly dropped for the current year.

Some of the dealers, who spoke with journalists  anonymously, accused the current leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture in the State of edging them out to pave way for an agro dealer firm they alleged was just registered February this year.

The agro dealers in the state   have also alleged that the ministry   has either decimated or completely delisted not less than 10 agro-dealers that performed creditably well in the 2013 GES exercise as certified by the project

They said with the way things are now that they might not be able to repay over N1.0 Billion proceeds of bank loans     they took to participate in the scheme if they are left out of the scheme. “Financiers have become weary in the face of the uncertainty being experienced by agro-dealer having bank funding.”

A de-listed agro dealer said “The success of the GES in Benue State is now going to be a thing of the past as the new leadership of the ministry in Benue state has moved to take over the GES as a super agro-dealer by muzzling out a lot of the existing agro-dealers.”

This, they said is contrary to directives affirmed after due briefing at the Northern Zone GES stakeholders meeting which held at Minna, where it was gathered that the State Director of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), and Benue State GES Coordinator Mr. James Ker, under the guidance of the IFDC state representative produced a list of the agro-dealers and the respective locations they were going to operate in during the GES 2014.

According to the aggrieved agro-dealers, the list was produced in line with the guidelines laid down by the Minister of Agriculture Dr. Akinwumi Adesina that the template used in the past year be maintained.