Africa-Press – Malawi. The Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Lobin Lowe, and leaders of the Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) are this afternoon locked up in a roundtable discussion called to clarify the contradicting statements on the number of beneficiaries for the 2021/22 Affordable Input Programme (AIP).
The meeting comes barely days after CDEDI had written Lowe, demanding that Lowe should resign for “reducing the number of Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) without consulting President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera”.
CDEDI executive director Sylvester Namiwa argued that the ‘unilateral decision’ Lowe made has made Malawians lose millions of kwacha through an exercise Directors of Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources undertook to delete names of one million farmers from the list of beneficiaries.
Namiwa gave Lowe seven (7) days to either make publicly, a detailed statement, justifying your decision to scale down the number of AIP beneficiaries, and indicating how much the exercise has cost Malawians, or step-down, to save himself from shame and further embarrassment following his “lack of knowledge on government protocols and procedures”.
In his response dated 26th August 2021, the minister invited CDEDI leadership to a roundtable meeting where he would clarify the issues. Namiwa confirmed received the invitation in an interview. He said he would use the “this opportunity to iron out some grey areas we have noted in Hon. Lowe’s response”.
