Youth in Phalombe have raised concern over Procurement of tree seedlings in the Malawi Youth Forest Afforestation Programme (MYFP), accusing authorities of misappropriating money in the process in Phalombe.
The youth in the district raised these concerns during a media tour which was organized so as to appreciate the initiative of President Peter Mutharika as one way of providing something to do to the youths thereby conserving the environment.
Chairperson for Kaduya Youth Network, Laston Matopa, said in an interview that some forestry extension workers were directly involved in the procurement of seedlings. 
Matopa also said that his network sold 9, 595 seedlings at K70 each against the recommended procurement price of K100 per seedling and authorities have never given them a tangible reasons why they bought the seedlings at the lower price.
Adrian Chikopa who is a leader for Nachilowe Youth club worried that they received peanuts after doing all the work and he blamed the forestry officials for failing to tell them in advance of amount they would get after completing their work.
“They never told us how much we would get at first when we were about to start this job. We thought we would ask them during the supervision but unfortunately no forestry official came to supervise us as we were doing the work,” he said.
When asked about the issue, Phalombe district forestry officer, Moses Mtambo, insisted that seedlings were procured following all the procurement procedures and that no forestry extension worker was involved in the procurement process.
“In terms of supervision I should say that at first we did not have funds. And no forestry official was involved in the procurement process. Their work was only to see if the seedlings were of good quality,” said Mtambo.
Malawi Parliament allocated K5 billion in the 2018/2019 financial year towards the program with the hope that it would recruit over 10,000 people.
