As one way of flushing out the ghost beneficiaries on Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) list, the Ministry of agriculture has embarked on a process to revise the list and remove all those who are not eligible to be on the list.
In his words, the Ministry’s spokesperson Gracian Lungu said that the preparations for the 2021/2022 have already started, and that government will ensure that the beneficiaries start accessing the inputs by July this year.
“We have done all the preparations for the beneficiaries to start accessing the inputs this coming July. What we all want is to make sure that the Inputs are going to the right beneficiaries not ghost ones hence revising the list”, Said Lungu.
Lungu added that the move to revise some procedures of implementing the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) stems from the recommendations of the postmortem results of the 2020/2021 growing season farming season
According to him, the ministry has started removing all ghost beneficiaries like civil servants who overwhelmed the programme implementation.
“Our officers are already on the ground and they are trying to remove all those that benefited but were not supposed to benefit from the programme, at the same time they are also adding who were supposed but did not befit, he said.
Commenting on the matter, an Agricultural expert from Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources ( LUANAR) Moses Phiri said the move will remove some of the problems that marred the AIP programme last season where farmers were sleeping at the selling point for consecutive nights as there was panic to access the inputs.
” This is a great move as we now expect farmers not sleeping at the selling point just as it was happening in the past where farmers were sleeping on the selling points and not able to access the inputs in time” said Phiri.
Last season, the Affordable Input Programme (AIP) was marred with logistical arrangements like late deliveries of inputs, internet hiccups and was also haunted by ghost beneficiaries among others. The government invested 160 million kwacha in the 2020/2021 Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) that benefited about 4. 2 Malawians.
