At least 1 034 347 hunger-stricken Malawians from seven districts are yet to start accessing relief maize due to delays by their respective councils to register beneficiaries, The Nation has learnt.
The delays have prompted the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) to write the councils, including five others which are supposed to start accessing the relief maize in the coming months.
The seven districts are Nsanje with 118 055 beneficiaries, Chikwawa with 195 972, Chiradzulu with 80 472, Thyolo with 321 947, Balaka with 106 350, Blantyre City with 26 770 and Dowa with 184 780.
Dodma commissioner Wilson Moleni in an interview yesterday expressed frustration with the delaying councils.
He said: “Councils are supposed to submit a distribution plan, but also a register of beneficiaries, meaning they need to register beneficiaries before we send the maize.
“The challenge now is that we can’t send maize to those districts. This means people who are supposed to benefit from the maize, are not. We have since written these councils to conclude the exercises.”
According to Moleni, maize is being ferried to the respective councils with the help of World Food Programme (WFP), which only starts the exercise upon getting a nod from Dodma.
At this stage, he said the 26 000 metric tonnes (MT) of maize government provided for the lean period through the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) is enough up to December end.
While the department will require additional maize thereafter, it has decried delays by some seven district councils to provide the necessary documentation which is key in the distribution of maize.
Contacted on the matter, Thyolo district commissioner Hudson Kuphanga admitted delays in the re-targeting process.
“Our resources from Dodma for the re-targeting to get the list of beneficiaries got locked up because they missed bank digits. But we have sourced money elsewhere to start the exercise tomorrow [Thursday] and hope to be done in two days’ time,” he said.
In Nsanje, acting district disaster risk management officer Patrick Sipuni said they have now completed the exercise, and sent the same to Dodma.
“We hope to commence the distribution exercise for maize on Monday next week, assuming Dodma provides us the maize,” he said, but could not explain the delay.
Dowa DC Stallichi Mwambiwa attributed the delays to several factors, including aligning the beneficiaries with the newly installed chiefs, delays to get other beneficiaries identified using the Unified Beneficiary Registry (UBR).
Meanwhile, Senior Chief Ngabu of Chikwawa has urged authorities to speed up the processes.
Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Roza Mbilizi launched the K209.4 billion 2025–2026 Lean Season Food Insecurity Response Programme targeting about four million people nationwide on November 1 2025 in Machinga.
