Police, ACB probe 75 AIP misconducts
Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale says the Malawi Police Service and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) are investigating 75 cases involving selling point malpractices nationwide in the ongoing Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP).
The minister made the revelation on Thursday in Nkhata Bay District during a media conference at Mzenga Irrigation Scheme where he madea field tour of irrigation schemes in the district.
Said Kawale: “We have addressed a lot of challenges faced by the programme and we are working with the police and the ACB. Currently, police have registered 15 cases involving 20 suspects arrested while doing illegal activity at selling points.
“The ACB is also investigating 60 AIP related cases and some have already been prosecuted while others are awaiting court judgement.”
In his remarks, Senior Chief Timbiri said so far, nobody in his area has logged a complaint about malpractices in selling points and the programme is running on smoothly.
The chief attributed this to increased selling markets in Nkhata Bay this year from three to nine which has reduced congestion.
However, he requested government to make sure that fertiliser is available in all centres as a good number have not purchased all bags of fertilisers.
The AIP has faced implementation challenges over the years, with the Donor Committee on Agriculture and Food Security in Malawi urging the government to rethink the allocations to the AIP which consume over half of the funding to the sector.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Ombudsman has written the Secretary for Agriculture and Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM) chief executive officer giving an update on spot checks her office has conducted on AIP.
In a letter The Nation has seen, Ombudsman Grace Malera said her office conducted the checks in 26 of the country’s 28 districts in December 2023 as part of its ongoing ‘systematic’ investigations into the AIP acting on complaints. The Ombudsman’s findings show that AIP challenges include some farmers failing to buy inputs because the system showed they had already redeemed their inputs while they had not, slow restocking of inputs and unreliable network.
