Stakeholders at a pre-budget consultation meeting in Mzuzu Thursday reiterated calls for the government to consider abandoning the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP), saying it has proven unsustainable.
Introduced in 2006 as Fertiliser Input Subsidy Programme, the AIP has over the years been riddled with endless bottlenecks such as delays to supply inputs, among others.
In the 2023-24 budget, the programme was allocated K109 billion targeting 1, 490, 250 beneficiaries with fertiliser and seed as other beneficiaries were earmarked to receive two goats each, putting the total numbers of beneficiaries to 1,500, 000.
just doing talk shows
Making a presentation at the consultation meeting, Livingstonia Synod Church and Society Programme Executive Director Rev Mcbowman Mulagha said AIP is highly politicised and that it has become a breeding ground for corruption.
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Mulagha suggested that the resources could be redirected to agriculture extension or mega farms to improve production.
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“AIP is a political gimmick. We are saying that it’s been bedevilled with corruption. I mean there is no way we can take out corruption from the AIP; as such, we just need to take out the programme and then we invest the money in mega farms for us to be able to produce more,” he said.
Similar suggestions were made by Nyika Institute Foundation Executive Director Moses Mkandawire, who said Malawi’s road to economic recovery needs more effort on production.
Meanwhile, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda said the suggestions would be taken into consideration.
“What we need to do now is to carefully analyse all the submissions and then pick out some of the pieces from all these submissions.
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“Let me assure Malawians that we are not just doing talk shows; we are actually doing real business because, at the end of the day, we want to have a budget that represents every Malawian,” he said.
