Chakwera rues subsidy reliance
President Lazarus Chakwera has dared Malawians to embrace self-reliance by fending for their families, warning that handout packages such as social cash transfers and subsidies will one day exit the stage.
He made the appeal on Wednesday at a rally he addressed at Sangwe Community ground in Chikwawa after inspecting rehabilitation works to restore 129 megawatts at Kapichira Hydro Power Station and assessing construction of the Shire Valley Transformation Programme. He also toured Illovo Sugar (Malawi) plc Nchalo Estate.
Chakwera said the handouts or subsidies, including Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP), seek to help build resilience among the beneficiaries who are expected to eventually graduate themselves from poverty.
The President said: “Our aim is that everybody should take responsibility to meet all his/her personal needs.
“I had a discussion with the World Bank two weeks ago and I told them that in Malawi we have a bad habit, there are a lot of subsidies in the name of social cash transfers, food for work and even Affordable Inputs Programme benefiting the same people year after year.
“We now plan to consolidate all these subsidies so that one should get a bigger chunk once and for all, this will make people responsible and it is a way of making Malawi an independent country.”
He said it was sad that most Malawians depend on such handouts and are not moving towards graduating from the same.
On the Shire Valley Transformation Programme, touted as the biggest project of its nature in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), Chakwera said such investments will make Malawi a food basket for local consumption and export.
Through the programme, Malawi sought to increase agricultural productivity and commercialisation for targeted households in the Shire Valley and improve the sustainable management and utilisation of natural resources.
The President said: “This magnificent and long-term investment should give hope to everybody as it will benefit smallholder farmers who will be into irrigation and commercial agriculture, thereby making Malawi food sufficient, economically self-reliant and developed.”
In her remarks, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Madalitso Kambauwa Wirima said the programme is poised to be a game-changer in the fight against perpetual hunger in the country.
She further urged people living upstream of Shire River to conserve the environment as siltation of the river threatens the country’s gains through the project.
Chikwawa South parliamentarian Ilyas Karim (Malawi Congress Party) said hunger, worsened by the double tragedy of topical storms Ana and Gombe, has affected his constituents.
Project coordinator Stanley Khaila said the project, which covers 43 370 hectares, will benefit 2 700 smallholder farmers.
He said phase one of the project has been completed and funds for phase two have already been allocated.
Said Khaila: “The project will support smallholder farmers to venture into commercialisation, develop mega farms, practice modern farming technologies and bring about factories to help them process their produce.”
The Government of Malawi through the Ministry of Agriculture with support from the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the Global Environment Facility, is implementing the Shire Valley Transformation Programme.
The programme, spanning 14 years from 2018 to 2031, which will be implemented in three sequential, but partially overlapping phases.
Construction of the Shire Valley Irrigation Scheme started in April 2020, but faced a drawback due to the effects of cyclone Ana and Gombe.
The project includes construction of a 181-kilometre canal from Kapichira Dam in Chikwawa to Bangula in Nsanje District.
