MCP MP demands suspension of fertiliser coupons
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) MP for Lilongwe Mpenu, Watson Makala Ngozo, (MCP) has asked government to completely suspend the use of fertilizer subsidy coupons which targets the most vulnerable households in communities.
Ngozo told parliament that the coupons which are being used are causing a lot of problems including corruption.
“There is too much corruption when we go to the markets to buy fertilizer with our farmers or our people in the constituency,” said Ngozo.
He proposed that government should revert the use of farmers club as it were under the MCP rule.
“ When they are registered in our villages, they must have a special day for our farmers. In the villages they know each other and they can go buy fertilizer without any problems using this clubs system as we were using it with Malawi Congress Party in the past,” he said.
The parliamentarian suggested that each constituency must have its own allocation.
“There must not be any migration let’s say from such constituency Lilongwe Mpenu going to Lilongwe East. This causes a lot of commotion in the markets because there is this system of controlling who buys first, in the end you find that those people who were supposed to buy that fertilizer that time they do not acquire that fertilizer, it has been bought by vendors,” he told the House.
He also asked government to explain the measures it has taken to avoid further devaluation of the kwacha, saying he is concerned “to see how Malawi agricultural resources are being smuggled and exported to other countries using our own currency.”
Ngozo told the House: “ If you go to Mitundu today, Mr. Speaker, Sir, on market day, you will find foreigners flooding in buying groundnuts, buying soya beans, and they are being smuggled outside the country. And if well managed as it was in the Malawi Congress Party era, they are the same agriculture produce which used to bring the fore in this country.”
He urged the Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Finance “to make very good measures” to protect Malawi’s resources so that Kwacha should not always be devalued but at least must have gained power against the dollar.
