Farmers, executives of Commodity Apex Development Association, CADA and incubators were Friday trained on basic accounting records keeping by the Abia State Project Coordinating Office of the Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises for Niger Delta, LIFE-ND.
The one-day training held at the project’s headquarters in Umuahia include farmers who engaged in the production, processing and marketing of selected commodities in their community project’s implementation.
Addressing the trainees during the occasion, the State Project Accountant, Mr Daniel Alozie described the training as important in order to train the new incubators (trainers) who were engaged last year to take care of the project’s 900 beneficiaries.
The primary purpose of the training, Alozie said was because “we discovered over time that most incubation centres did not have records to buttress their expenditures” explaining that the incubators are people that train the project’s beneficiaries in different agricultural commodities and management.
According to Alozie, LIFE-ND is making sure that the resource persons would bring down the teaching to the level of somebody who did not pass through the four walls of higher institutions, adding “At this point of our project implementation, it is necessary that we keep them abreast of what is happening with respect to the basic accounting records.
“A lot of funds have been sent to the incubators'(trainers) accounts and we keep on funding them as the project implementation progresses”.
One of the resource persons, Mr Philip Obinna, lectured the trainees on the importance of book keeping, described book keeping as the life wire of a business which he said will help the farmer to know his financial standing, and to know whether he or she is doing well or not.
Mr Lawrence Ubani, who lectured on How to prepare simple cash book and bank reconciliation, explained that such an important exercise would make them keep the record of all their transactions, after which they will reconcile their records with their bank statements afterwards.
A participant, Mrs Elizabeth Deliverer, who is the Managing Director of Delver Farms in Osisioma Local Government Area, said she benefitted a lot from the training, adding “Most of us do not keep records but now, I have learnt how to keep my cash, sales and purchases to move forward”.
Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises for Niger Delta, LIFE-ND is being funded by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in collaboration with the Federal Government and Niger Delta Development Commission as well as the Abia state government.
