ACB faults AIP pay system

This year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) beneficiaries will not pay in advance for the inputs amid reports that some farmers did not get theirs during the last agricultural season despite paying for them.

In the new farming season, the Ministry of Agriculture will revert to the pay-and-collect method following a recommendation by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) which monitored the 2022/2023 programme.

Under the advance payment system, the beneficiaries were asked to collect the inputs after a day or two.

The ministry introduced the component last year under the mobile vending system to reduce the distance beneficiaries travel to access the inputs and eliminate the waiting period for the same.

In January this year, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale told Weekend Nation that the advance payment system had proved effective as it made suppliers deliver exact number of items to selling points.

But in an interview on Tuesday, the minister said the system was a temporary measure that they used last year to manage a specific challenge the ministry had. He could not eeleborate.

In a written response, Kawale said the ministry abandoned the system after assessing the ACB Monitoring Report of 2022/2023.

Kawale explained: “One of the recommendations was to use the pay-and-collect method. But the ministry already planned to abandon the system even before the [ACB] report came out.”

Reacting to the turnaround, Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture chairperson Sameer Suleman commended the ministry for realising that the advance payment system was a mess.

He also confirmed reports that several beneficiaries failed to access the inputs despite paying for them.

Said Suleman: “As a committee, we were surprised with the introduction of the advance payment method from the word go; so, it’s not surprising that they have dumped it.”

Transparency and accountability commentator Willy Kambwandira, whose organisation Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (Csat) has a monitoring project for AIP through a toll-free line, also said they had reservations with the system and the “migration is a welcome development”.

Said Kambwandira: “This back-and-forth in the delivery of the AIP is indicative of a government operating on a trial-and-error basis, which has cost implications.”

He said Csat was also aware that some farmers did not access fertiliser despite the ministry collecting money from them in advance.

Kambwandira, who is Csat executive director, has asked government to explain how it will deal with such cases.

“We also expect the ministry to address other challenges that rocked the programme’s delivery.”

But Kawale said the ministry had no information on beneficiaries failing to access fertiliser after paying for it. He said the only official report was from Chiwamba in Lilongwe where thieves stole the fertiliser

“These people [in Chiwamba] will get their fertiliser once we are done with the police case on the same. Apart from this incident, we do not have any other official report of anyone else who paid but did not receive fertiliser.”

The minister also disclosed that government was yet to pay two companies from last year’s list of contractors that supplied inputs.

Agricultural and development economist Henry Kankwamba while describing the shift as positive, observed that politics, instead of economics, was driving AIP implementation.

“AIP administration has been marred with political interference for a long time. If this switch could lessen the dead weight losses it could be better. We need to keep politics away from subsidies,” said the lecturer at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Ironically, politicisation of the programme is one of the issues pointed out by the graft-busting body in its Monitoring Report of the 2022/2023 AIP implementation dated May 2023.

Between September and October 2022, ACB conducted beneficiary verification, public awareness and sensitisations in 13 districts. The exercise was conducted in 396 selling points covering 219 extension planning areas across the country.

According to ACB, the programme was marred with a plethora of challenges such as failure of some beneficiaries to redeem the inputs in good time or access the inputs.

The ACB report also says the use of mobile vending system was not properly executed in some areas because there were no proper arrangements of when the vehicle would come to sell the fertiliser.

Equally, in its findings of Systemic Investigations on the AIP Implementation for 2022/23, the Office of the Ombudsman also stated that the mobile vending system presented several challenges, including congestion in markets.

ACB made 11 recommendations which, besides halting the use of advance payment system, include ensuring that lawmakers do not politicise the programme when helping people in their areas and ensuring that the procurement process begins and ends in good time.

Further, the bureau recommended that the ministry should ensure that AIP guidelines are clear on the eligibility of beneficiaries, especially for households that have a civil servant.

The report also says ACB received 191 AIP corruption allegations bordering on bribery, extortion, fraud, and embezzlement which were all handled and necessary actions taken.

Out of the 191 cases, 25 were investigated and recommended for prosecution and closure while 11 were referred to other institutions.

The bureau did not take any action on 49 allegations due to lack of merit but it arrested 10 people in Mchinji, Dowa, Zomba, Mangochi and Dedza.

Those arrested included chiefs and officers from Ministry of Agricultuire and Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi. Three cases were taken to court and one suspect was convicted.