On Wednesday 9 February 2022, the CIC became the first commodity board to sign a MoU with CEFI.
CIC Acting Chief Executive Officer, Charles Dambui and CEFI Executive Director, Saliya Ranasinghe signed the MoU in Port Moresby, which will now enable the two organizations to work in partnership to roll out financial literacy and inclusion to targeted coffee farming communities.
This will allow savings culture to be introduced to coffee farmer’s households by teaching them how to make informed financial management decisions and allowing them to have access to a wide range of financial services that address their farming business or personal household needs.
The MoU will also allow CEFI to conduct Training of Trainers (ToT) to 100 CIC Extension Officers; 20 from each impact areas of the five regions including Upper Highlands, Lower Highlands, Momase, New Guinea Island and Southern.
“A very historic occasion for Papua New Guinea (because) we are very proud that we are able to (sign this MoU) with the Coffee Industry Corporation because the coffee industry is one of the key industries in the country which brings in substantial revenue to the country,” said Mr Ranasinghe
“We would like all Papua New Guineans to have access to financial services which are delivered in a responsible and sustainable manner to improve farming activities and improve standard of living.
“We can make an impact if we work with economically active people.
He added: “What we sign today ((Wednesday February 9) ) will be one of the most critical activity for the farming communities whom you serve and we are extremely pleased and extremely grateful to the (CIC) CEO and his team for taking this initiative to partner with us (CEFI) to provide this important services to the farming communities.”
Mr Dambui said coffee is grown in 18 of the 22 provinces and annually generates K500-400 million into the country and over 55-60 percent of that money goes directly to the farmers.
“(But) many of our farmers lack some knowledge when it comes to finance management. We want our farmers to be businessmen and women and not just subsistence farmers and the skills they are lacking is budgeting and savings.
“We have seen our coffee farmers pulling away from coffee because they do not have any money to invest back into the coffee garden and they do not have savings culture,” he said.
Dambui concluded: “On behalf of the board and the management and the industry players we would like to thank CEFI, we will be working closely with CEFI to see that our farmers are financial literate.”