Member of Parliament for Zomba Central Bester Awali has asked Government to end the Affordable Inputs Program (AIP) and find another way to assist farmers, saying the government spends a lot of money on the AIP but the program is not helping vulnerable farmers.
The MP said this in Parliament when he was responding to State of National Address which was presented in Parliament by President Lazarus Chakwera.
According to Awali, the K109 billion program is failing to protect farmers from food insecurity and there is need for Government to find another way.
“If you look critically at this program you would find out that the very same people that do benefit from this program of AIP and purchasing subsidized inputs are the very same who are cushioned by the relief maize that Government is buying. So meaning that Malawi is spending on AIP and buying relief food items for the very same people.
“In essence what if we could concentrate on one, if we don’t implement AIP let’s just buy food because the money that is injected into the AIP program is a huge sum of money which in essence would even help just to buy maize unlike just to buy fertilizer,” said Awali.
The MP also argued that instead of importing fertilizer, the Malawi Government should just procure a fertilizer production plant so that fertilizer should be manufactured right here in Malawi which would save a lot things including Forex and at the same time creating jobs for a lot of people.
“For example there are already cooperatives that are manufacturing fertilizer here in Malawi using urine, what if Government just capacitate these cooperatives they should make mass production so that they should meet demand that the demand of fertilizer in this country,” explained Awali.
Under the AIP, government provides subsidized fertilizer and seeds to over 2 million farmers. However, every year the program is affected by challenges such as procurement fraud, theft and delays in distributing fertilizer to selling depots
