A parliamentary committee has launched a probe into the disposal of K15 billion worth of National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF) assets after it emerged that massive quantities of farm inputs and equipment are rotting in warehouses while farmers go without support.
Ayuba James
The Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Corporations and State Enterprises says it will closely monitor and scrutinise the proposed disposal to establish how public resources of such scale were allowed to deteriorate into near scrap.
Committee chairperson Sylvester Ayuba-James made the remarks after members toured NEEF’s Mponela facility, where they found fertiliser, seeds, agro-chemicals, solar-powered water pumps and irrigation pipes worth over K15 billion lying idle and earmarked for disposal.
Ayuba-James said the committee was alarmed by what it saw and would convene a full sitting before approving any disposal, stressing that the exercise must not become another avenue for looting under the guise of “loss minimisation”.
NEEF Public Relations Officer Elizabeth Mapemba confirmed that the items include fertilisers, various seed varieties, agro-chemicals, solar irrigation systems and pipes — inputs that were meant to empower farmers but are now deteriorating unused.
The scandal deepens with revelations that some of these inputs were procured as part of farmer loan schemes, yet ended up expiring in storage, together with office equipment, exposing catastrophic failures in planning, procurement and oversight.
NEEF Chief Executive Officer Kayisi Sadala admitted to Parliament that seeds such as beans are already affected, blaming the situation on over-procurement, a polite term for what critics describe as reckless purchasing without demand analysis or storage capacity.
Sadala said authorities have now been granted permission to dispose of the excess inputs and equipment in a bid to reduce losses — a move that raises serious questions about who will be held accountable for creating the losses in the first place.
In a related development, Chief Secretary to the Office of the President and Cabinet Justin Saidi has ordered the disposal of all non-functional vehicles across government, warning that maintaining grounded fleets is draining public resources.
However, governance experts say these disposal exercises are treating symptoms, not causes.
Executive Director of the Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (CSAT), Willy Kambwandira, has squarely blamed negligence and systemic failure in public procurement, calling for disciplinary and legal action against officials who approved purchases that had no clear distribution or utilisation plan.
“Disposal should not be the end of the story,” Kambwandira said. “Someone authorised these procurements. Someone signed off storage. Someone ignored expiry risks. Without consequences, this cycle of waste will simply repeat.”
At a time when Malawi faces food insecurity, budget constraints and growing public debt, the sight of billions worth of agricultural inputs rotting in warehouses has become a symbol of state dysfunction, where incompetence costs the poor, but accountability never reaches those in charge.
