FUM courts Northern Region stakeholders on Fisp

Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) last Thursday engaged stakeholders in the Northern Region to draw lessons and best practices on the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp).

FUM president Alfred Kapichira Banda said the programme is meant to benefit most smallholder farmers, transporters, traditional leaders and agriculture officers.

“The farmer comes last in the equation and sometimes gets the inputs later in the season when they cannot use them. That is why we had these consultations to find out ways of improving the programme,” he said.

Kapichira also bemoaned corrupt practices among some agriculture extension workers and traditional leaders who connive to register fake villages.

“All we want is justice and fairness for the smooth running of the programme. We don’t want traditional leaders who can afford to buy farm inputs benefitting from inputs meant for the poor of the poorest,’ he said.

Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) principal investigations officer, Mwangupiri Ngosi, who is also team leader for the anti-graft body in the region, said they have been receiving more corruption cases in connection with Fisp.

“We received many cases, but cannot complete them due to staff challenge, hence, we are calling all stakeholders to prevent corruption than control it,” he said.

The participants at the meeting noted that apart from rampant corruption, sharing is also an issue among beneficiaries as it defeats the purpose of the programme.

This was in reference to beneficiaries who share a 50 kilogramme bag of fertiliser among three families.

They also pointed out cases of transporters who are contracted without the capacity to deliver the commodity to the designated markets.