Fisp participants should be selected on merit
News that the Office of Director of Public Procurement (ODPP) is scrutinising successful bidders for this year’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) before giving them No Objection orders is reassuring.
This is important given the many problems that have dogged Fisp in the previous years thereby not only making the programme ineffective but also wasteful.
Government and development partners been pumping billions of Kwacha into the programme aimed at averting hunger among many households which cannot afford to buy farm inputs from the private sector.
Government and the Smallholder Farmers Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFRFFM) which was designated to manage the programme, is aware of the private firms that have contributed to the programme’s dismal performance in the past.
It will be a betrayal of the highest order to the taxpayer and development partners who fund the programme and recipe for underperformance of the programme to continue to allow such firms to participate in this year’s Fisp exercise.
It is in this regard that we hope and expect the SFRFFM which selects the successful bidders, the ODPP which issues No Objection orders to firms and the Joint Parliamentary Committee which has an oversight responsibility on the programme to do a good job on due diligence so that the successful bidders are only those selected strictly on merit.
What is of utmost importance is for SFRFFM, ODPP and the Joint Parliamentary Committee to ensure transparency at all levels and stages of the programme.
