Govt spends P265 million on LITS

The Acting Director at the Department of Veterinary Services Kobedi Segale confirmed during an interview with Mmegi that servers, equipment, bolus readers, database design, servicing and maintenance including upgrading and procurement and recycling of the bolus itself, had cost approximately P265 million. "LITS is an IT-based system, therefore it needs regular updates or upgrading and this comes at a cost," he asserted.

Segale said that the ministry is not changing this system, but rather changing the identifier, known as bolus, for an ear tag, which will continue to use the system already in place.He said that the decision to phase out the use of the bolus as an identifier was informed by a technical LITS review conducted in 2009-2010 and the stakeholders' evaluation; which was done through farmer consultation this year.