Cry for Mzimba Perekezi on AIP

Today allow me to speak on behalf people who have missed this year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) train in my constituency. This is Mzimba Perekezi, the new constituency created after Mzimba South was split into two.

For now until September 2025, the Member of Parliament for both Mzimba South and Mzimba Perekezi remains Emmanuel Chambulanyina Jere. He is from Vibangalala which is in Mzimba South.

Here is the problem. Mzimba Perekezi has a projected voter population of 43 129 people, according to the Malawi Electoral Commission Boundary Review Final Report. But this year only a paltry 1 527 people will receive AIP materials from the new constituency, according to the Mzimba AIP programme beneficiaries list by EPA and constituency.

On the other hand, in Mzimba South which has a projected voter population of 47 273, a total of 12 874 people will receive AIP materials this year. Can someone please help me to understand the arithmetic here? How do you select 12 874 beneficiaries from 47 273 and only 1 529 from 43 129? What were the criteria for selecting beneficiaries? I just hope that the figures I saw and have been trending on social media were computed from a wrong sheet.

In percentage terms, the above mean that only 3.5 percent of the people have been allocated AIP materials in Mzimba Perekezi this year against 27 percent for Mzimba South. Why such a huge disparity? As already stated above, I have no idea how these figures were arrived at. And I am praying that this is just an error. If, God forbid, this is correct, then people of Mzimba Perekezi need a good explanation and orientation about what AIP is all about. Definitely it means the programme has nothing to do with achieving food security.

My first point of call on this matter is obviously my Member of Parliament, Chambulanyina. My hope is that by the time this newspaper comes on the street, the (presumed) anomaly on the allocation of AIP beneficiaries will already have been brought to his attention. And not only will he have been exasperated by the development, but more importantly, he will also have started making remedial action on it.

Chambulanyina will not stand as an MP in Mzimba Perekezi but in Mzimba South, because that is where he comes from—Vibangalala. But I hope this has nothing to do with why a fat 27 percent of projected eligible voters in his constituency will receive the cheap fertiliser against the negligible 3.7 percent in Mzimba Perekezi.

To say that many people from Mzimba Perekezi who were hopeful of receiving cheaper fertiliser and seeds this year are angry would be a gross understatement. As I wrote this on Thursday, they were consumed in rage and fury. They were spitting fire and some unprintable words.

Mzimba Perekezi has two wards—Boma and Hoho. On Thursday the day news broke that only 1 529 people from Mzimba Perekezi had been included on the list of beneficiaries, I was inundated by calls and WhatsApp messages from people of Hoho Ward expressing their utter disgust and disbelief that whole villages were thrown under the bus. In one village of 80 people where 65 of them received fertiliser last year, this year only three are on the beneficiary list. In another village where 49 households benefitted from the programme last year, only two people will receive the cheap fertilisers this year.

Most people felt if the figures were correct, then AIP was a big joke and it better just be abolished. It was an affront on their intellect as it just creates false hopes. People better forget about it. The small numbers of AIP beneficiaries from Mzimba Perekezi this year is too insignificant to translate into anything near curbing food insecurity in the constituency.

I hope the cries of people from Mzimba Perekezi represent the voices of many other people across the country who have missed this year’s K117 billion AIP train.