— Agriculture Minister tells health fair

AGRICULTURE Minister Zulfikar Mustapha has underscored the value of a healthy workforce when the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the Ministry of Health hosted a health fair on Friday to mark Occupational Health and Safety Month 2022, at its Regent Street compound.

Subject Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, who took part in the event, said the activity was held to promote good health practices among staffers of the ministry and its sub-agencies.
“From the Ministry of Agriculture’s perspective, this is important for us; health and wellness are very important for our employees. I think we should organise this quarterly so we can have all of our employees checked and in healthy positions because the Ministry of Agriculture is a very rigorous ministry where we go in different terrains and different situations.”

The minister added that given the success of the fair, he will be engaging the ministry’s permanent secretary to have a quarterly health fair held for the staffers and their families.
“The Ministry of Agriculture is a large ministry that comprises of [sic] almost 12 agencies and we have thousands of workers; and so I will ask the permanent secretary in the next time to extend the fair to the members of the public and also to the families of employees of the ministry, so they can come here and have their basic health checks.”

The minister further noted that the government is cognisant of the importance of having a healthy nation and workforce; hence, the hosting of events such as health fairs.
“Occupational Health and Safety are very important for our country’s population, especially for our work force and as a government, you know for a fact that we are spending a lot of budgetary allocations on health and wellness in our country, because we recognise the importance of the population’s health and we want to ensure that we spend these allocations effectively, so that our people can be healthy.”

Staff and members of the public were able to benefit from a range of medical services such as blood-pressure testing, dental check-ups and eye examinations, among others.
Persons were also able to speak with a physician and obtain prescriptions for medications, some of which were available at the fair free of cost.