Civil Society Agriculture Network (Cisanet) has faulted the pace at which the government is restructuring the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc).
In September last year, the Ministry of Agriculture suspended Admarc’s operations and sent on leave all its employees as part of the restructuring exercise.
The institution then retrenched all its employees in January this year, marking the beginning of the restructuring exercise.
However almost a year after the beginning of the exercise, progress has, according to some experts, been slow.
“While we appreciate some efforts [made] by [following] this process, Cisanet is yet to be impressed with the progress that has been registered. When all things seem not to work in the country, Admarc should have been an institution that could have been performing but, surprisingly, we have not made such progress despite some good investments from taxpayers’ money to restructure the body.
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“This would also be another missed opportunity for the Admarc board and the new management to prove their worth. They had a chance not to do business as usual but to strive to deliver the short-term targets that the body had set,” Herbert Chagona, the network’s board chairperson, told The Daily Times.
He further faulted the corporation for failing to update Malawians on what is happening.
Agriculture policy expert Leonard Chimwaza concurred with Chagona.
He wondered why the State-owned grain trader has taken “long” to conclude the recruitment exercise.
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“We tend to wonder if we are really serious with plans to restore Admarc’s glory. If we take long to finalise the recruitment process, there will be challenges.
“We would have loved it if this process were concluded by now so that, as we start the 2023-24 agriculture calendar, the institution could have aligned its activities with the calendar, “Chimwaza said.
Chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture Sameer Suleman expressed concern that there is nothing to point at in the restructuring exercise.
“Admarc continues to struggle in its operations. Where is the restructuring? We need to have political will to restructure the institution. What they are doing is only to show Malawians that they are doing something but, on the ground, there is literally nothing,” Suleman said.
The development comes after former State vice president Cassim Chilumpha has accused the current administration of destroying Admarc.
“Agriculture is the backbone of this country and it is only Admarc that can handle agriculture-related things but today they have destroyed it,” Chilumpha said at a rally in Blantyre on Sunday.
In July this year, Admarc announced the recruitment of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dan Makata who, according to board chairperson Zachary Kasomekera, is supposed to lead in the restructuring process.
Kasomekera said “the exercise is going on well”.
“Apart from the CEO, we have also hired Head of Operations, who also started [work] in July. We have already conducted interviews for the positions of Director of Finance and Director of Corporate Affairs and the board recommended names of successful candidates to the government.
“So, for the board, we were supposed to recruit [people in] those positions and management is supposed to recruit [people for] other lower positions. And I should tell you that that process is at about 80 percent. So, if we look at restructuring in terms of hiring staff members, that has been done,” Kasomekera.
He said the new Admarc will, among other things, have a lean staff as they are expected to recruit about 1,500 workforce compared to previous one, that was 3,000 employees strong.
Admarc, which according to Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale is supposed to start selling maize in its markets this coming Thursday, is operating with skeleton staff which is on a month-to-month contract.
For some time, Admarc has been faced with challenges bordering on alleged inefficiency and mismanagement and has consistently asked the government for bailout.
Two years ago, the parastatal announced a turnaround strategy where, among other things, it wanted to revive its agro-processing and value addition activities.
