This year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) has received a boost after the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has given five district councils the green light to proceed with the Unified Beneficiary Registry (UBR) exercise following the lifting of a restriction order.
This means enumerators are free to collect data from households for consideration in social programmes such as this year’s AIP.
When they appeared before members of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture last week, Ministry of Agriculture Principal Secretary responsible for Technical Services Medrina Mloza Banda indicated that they have already started preparing for the 2023-24 AIP.
However, the ACB’s decision to suspend the registration exercise in five councils meant the identification of AIP beneficiaries would have been affected.
In April this year, the graft-busting body stopped Chiradzulu, Dowa, Nkhotakota, Ntchisi and Kasungu district councils from proceeding with recruiting and training of enumerators for the 2023 UBR exercise in order to investigate alleged corrupt acts in the recruitment process.
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And, in a twist to the issue, ACB Principal Public Relations Officer Egrita Ndala says their investigations have revealed that there is no prosecutable evidence in relation to the exercise.
“The restriction notices have been lifted and the councils should proceed with the recruitment and training of the identified candidates,” the ACB says.
Nevertheless, the graft-busting body has ordered Karonga District Council to restart the process, saying ACB investigators identified serious irregularities in the recruitment process.
Meanwhile, spokesperson for the Department of Economic Planning, which is under the Ministry of Finance, Allan Jere, has said he is delighted that the ACB has given the five councils the greenlight to proceed with the exercise.
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“We are now remaining with 10 districts and the restriction caused the delay but it was worth the wait as results have been satisfactory and we are very happy that we will resume the exercise,” Here said.
Government has so far collected data from 18 districts and was remaining with 10 districts.
From the 10 remaining districts, the government was expected to first carry out the exercise in six districts of Chiradzulu, Dowa, Ntchisi, Nkhotakota, Kasungu and Karonga before wrapping it up in four districts of Rumphi, Ntcheu, Lilongwe and Blantyre.
