Africa-Press – Malawi. He writes; President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse Government deserves public odium and condemnation in the shambolic way it has handled the Affordable Input Program (AIP).
First, our President publicly warned the then Minister of Agriculture, Hon Lobin Lowe, at Kuyenda Ground in Ntcheu District on 11 April, 2022 during his nationwide crop inspection tour that if there was no AIP fertiliser in the country by September, Lowe should consider himself fired.
By the said September there was no AIP fertiliser in Malawi. Our President, who has now mastered the art prevarication, did not fire Lowe for the absence of fertiliser.
Instead, the President fired Lowe, on 25 October, deep into the farming season, for Lowe’s involvement in a mysterious MK30 billion fertiliser procurement. This left the new appointee, the hapless Sam Kawale to pick the broken pieces, including expecting delivery of fertiliser from a London butcher.
Today, as expected, SFFRFM does not have adequate fertiliser. SFFRFM is depending on MPs and other well wishers to transport their staff from point to point, registering potential beneficiaries.
And when time comes for the fertiliser to be delivered, again carried by MPs and other well wishers, only a small fraction of the fertiliser is actually delivered, to the chagrin of the the expectant beneficiaries.
The SFFRFM staff make no apologies for delivering inadequate fertiliser, and give no indication as to when, if at all, the remaining fertiliser will be delivered.
Why, one may ask, did Governnent entrust this important program to a company which has no capacity whatsoever? In these circumstances, we may have to understand what provoked the tempers of the peace loving citizens of Kamphata to reach boiling point two days ago.
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