SFFRFM fails to buy commercial fertiliser for farmers
Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM) has failed to procure fertiliser for commercial purpose this year due to financial constraints, it has emerged.
Ministry of Agriculture controller of agriculture services responsible for institutions, Jerome Nkhoma, made the revelation at Parliament Building in Lilongwe on Friday when the ministry’s officials appeared before the Budget and Finance Committee of Parliament.
SFFRFM, which is managing this year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP), has a commercial unit which procures fertilisers and sells on commercial basis.
But Nkhoma said this year the institution failed to raise funds to procure commercial fertiliser in the country.
He said: “In terms of raising resources for themselves, they have not been up to the mark. AIP also faced delays because of SFFRFM capacity challenges in procuring.
“Whatever they submitted to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority [PPDA] was not being approved in time because they lacked merit.”
Nkhoma said government is now helping SFFRFM to conduct a functional review process expected to be completed before the new financial year rolls out on April 1.
He said the new structure will help government and SFFRFM to undertake business which it was designed to do.
Nkhoma said: “What government is doing is supporting the functional review and turnaround of SFFRFM which is meant to help them get organised to do business on their own and not rely on Treasury 100 percent as is the case at the moment.”
When contacted for further clarification yesterday, SFFRFM chief executive officer Richard Chikunkhuzeni asked for a questionnaire. However, he had not yet responded by press time at 9pm.
Meanwhile, Malawi Agriculture Policy Advancement Agenda (Mwapata) executive director William Chadza said SFFRFM could be failing to raise resources due to a sharp increase in prices of fertiliser on the global market.
In an interview yesterday, he said what the fund was able to realise in the past cannot match the current prices and that SFFRFM may have been overstretched by its role in AIP.
Chadza said: “They might need recapitalisation. The fund is not performing as expected. It is also an opportune time to relook at the function of the fund.”
During the financial year, it was involved in botched up fertiliser deals, including the K750 million (about $750 000) fertiliser deal with Baarkat Foods Limited, a British food processing firm, which was backed by the Ministry of Agriculture.
