On Wednesday last week, alates made rounds where I work.
I do not blame them.
It was dark outside, the only place with light being the room I was in.
At first, the alates flew in droves and, then, one by one, fell to the ground as they lost wings.
I understand it is nature that made it that way. By nature, they emerge from colonies to mate and, almost always, they never go back where came from. Instead, they, in that wingless state, found new homes elsewhere.
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They cannot found a nest elsewhere in their winged state. It is nature and there is nothing they can do about it.
Well, the one thing that stood out when the alates swarmed the room I was in was the way they, after losing wings, moved in circles. Two-by-two they moved in circles, perhaps looking for a hole or some loose end on the concrete floor.
Little did I know that, days later, the Ministry of Agriculture would emulate that ‘moving in circles’ gesture.
Well, it has.
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It has done so on the issue of Fertiliser Inputs Programme (AIP).
At first, the government, through the ministry, announced that it had trimmed the list of those who would benefit from the 2023-24 AIP.
The idea, we were told, was to ensure that those that deserved inputs, in this case fertiliser and goats, would get the materials.
Deep down, some of us knew that the government was hoodwinking us into believing that it was interested in saving taxpayers’ money when, in fact, it was playing mind-games with development partners, some of whom have been against the programme as it has produced no graduates over the years.
Now guess what. The government is walking back on its word.
This is because the Ministry of Agriculture has said it has almost concluded preparing an additional list of names of beneficiaries of the 2023-24 AIP. Agriculture Minister Sam Kawale disclosed this at Santhe in Kasungu District during a development meeting which Finance Minister Simplex Chithyola Banda organised.
According to Kawale, the additional names will cater for villages where there were “very few to no” beneficiaries. He observed that the task of distributing additional fertiliser is expected to start from January 8.
In this year’s AIP, government is providing subsidised farm imputs to 1.5 million farming households— at a cost of K109 billion.
Now coming up with an additional list of beneficiaries would definitely balloon the total AIP budget for this year— and that means walking back on some of the promises the government made to development partners.
After all, when President Lazarus Chakwera launched the 2023-24 AIP in Kasungu District on October 20 2023, he indicated that those that would be left out would be incorporated in other public programmes as one way of cushioning them from problems.
And, of course, thousands of people have been enrolled in other public programmes.
Now, with the government’s change of heart, what measures will it put in place to ensure that those already enrolled in other public programmes are not added to the new list?
The other time [that is to say December 2023] we were told that the country had about 14,500 metric tonnes (mt) of fertiliser ready for distribution— just that AIP beneficiaries could not access the same because the soil-enriching substance was under collateral.
Under the collateral agreement, the government was keeping the fertiliser in its warehouses but could not access it unless it paid suppliers, who were keeping keys for the warehouses and were demanding that they be paid in United States (dollars).
This came to the fore during a meeting that the Agriculture Committee of Parliament had with officials from the Ministry of Agriculture on progress of the 2023-24 AIP.
Now, as the government makes a U-turn, has the fertiliser that was under collateral been released?
Questions! Questions! Questions!
Maybe we, Malawians, are no different from alates.
