PSST Ggobi commends Tirupati business park, NARO

As part of his routine check-on the economy, the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Ramathan Ggobi, on Saturday made a spot check on National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and the Tirupati Business Park.
During his visit at the Tirupati Business Pak, Mr Ggobi commended the work being done before promising to partner as government with them as they provide spaces for cottage industries.

“I came to the field as my practice of checking on exactly what is happening on the economy and I went to the Tirupati Business Park, whose model is mainly to provide spaces for cottage industries. These are small scale kind of fabricators, manufactures but also traders who want to keep their products safe and do business,” PSST Ggobi said while on a guided tour of the business park.
Adding: “It’s a wonderful model which I think government should take seriously by partnering with innovators like the family of these wonderful people (Tirupati); who are putting up this. We are going to have a conversation on how to take it forward, especially to use it as a model. YThese small industrial parks and create a plug and play kind of stalls where different investors can come in and start doing business instead of getting money to invest in buying land, spending money building; these ones, you hire space and mortgage it over time.”

Likewise, during his visit to NARO on the same day, Mr Ggobi praised the technology that the scientists have put in to come up with vaccines to cure ticks.
“This afternoon (Saturday afternoon), I have spent it at NARO, the one in Namuloge, looking at the innovations, what scientists have come up with to provide solutions to the various challenges in the country particularly the issue of vaccines that they have come up with to ensure that our livestock sector is sorted. They are in the final stage in getting these vaccines,” Mr Ggobi said.

He also promised NARO of the continued government support to carry on with its mandate of guidance and coordination of all agricultural research activities in the country.
“The good thing, government has been supporting NARO and we are going to continue supporting them. There are some few things that they have asked for and I will encourage my colleagues at the ministry and the entire government to find immediate solutions to some of the things that they need so that we take science to another level,” the PSST said.
He continued: “When you come to places like NARO, you can really understand because you are now really in the laboratory to understand some of the things which our leaders for example His Excellency, the President keeps on telling us and the need to support them.”

To the researchers, the Finance ministry tweeted of how it’s now justifiable to be paid handsomely. 
In September, scientist at NARO revealed that they will be releasing an ant tick vaccine in one’s period.
Traditional methods for the control of tick infestations have been based on use of acaricides, repellents, antibiotics, cattle breeding and extension education about recommended practices to reduce exposure to ticks.
However, cattle keepers have not been successful in controlling the ticks using the above methods hence the vaccine comes in handy.

Cattle tick parasites affect animal health, production and welfare, particularly in tropical and subtropical countries.
Experts say that particularly in Uganda, tick-borne diseases such as East Coast fever caused by Theileria parva, babesiosis, anaplasmosis caused by Anaplasma marginale and heart water caused by Ehrlichia ruminantium, affect cattle production with estimated losses of more than Shs4 trillion annually. 
It’s upon this background that experts embarked on researching about development of tick vaccine which they expect to avail to farmers in one years’ time.
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