AIP battle rages! Leader of Opposition, Kondwani Nankhumwa has made a scathing allegation that government is collecting money upfront from farmers for the Affordable Inputs Programme-AIP fertilizer with a promise to give them the commodity at a later date.
Nankhumwa says he is reliably informed that government is using agents in this scheme. He describes this as unprecedented in the history of the country’s fertilizer subsidy programme.
“Already, hunger situation among many households has reached alarming proportions. It is therefore abhorrent for government to demand money upfront from poor farmers amounting to K30,000 and never give them the required commodity that they desperately need for crop production” argues Nankhumwa in a statement.
He threatens to seek guidance from legal and governance institutions if government fails to return the money by January 27 2023.
But Youth and Sports Minister, who is also Chairperson of the AIP Committee, Richard Chimwendo Banda declines to comment before receiving official communication on the matter.
On Thursday, over 45 villages in Traditional Authority Mlonyeni in Mchinji also claimed they were told to pay K30 000 each for the security of fertilizer bags at a SFFRFM depot th
