The Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) has expressed concern over Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) beneficiaries facing hunger and lining up for relief food.

Speaking in an interview at the weekend, Dodma commissioner Charles Kalemba described the development as “the type of equation that doesn’t work for the good progress of a country”.

He prayed that this farming season, AIP beneficiaries will put their inputs to good use and harvest enough food.

Kalemba said: “Currently, government is distributing AIP fertiliser. The aim is that those benefitting from AIP should not be part of the people that suffer food shortages next year. 

“But if you go in the villages, you would discover that they have sold their AIP fertiliser. Meaning for sure next year, we will come back to give them free food.”

According to the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Mvac), 3.8 million Malawians, which is around 20 percent of the population, face acute food insecurity during this lean period. Out of the total figure of those projected to face acute food insecurity, 3.2 million people live in rural areas, while 623 000 reside in the country’s four cities of Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.

But Kalemba said they expect to reach at least 70 percent of the households with relief food and funds by the end of this month.

“We are on course according to our plan. The first phase in the Southern Region has been completed and we are now going into the second phase.

 “For the Centre and the North, we have started distribution. So, where we are distributing maize, we have started in all the councils,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lilongwe district commissioner Lawford Palani has said nearly half of the targeted households have received their packages.

Speaking during Dodma’s relief maize distribution in Traditional Authority Kalolo in Lilongwe, Thursday, he said 73 000 beneficiaries in Lilongwe are supposed to receive relief maize and so far, people in seven traditional authorities have received the food.

“As of now 40 percent have managed to receive their relief items,” he said.

Mvac’s 3.8 million figure is the highest number of acutely food-insecure population in the last five years compared to 3.3 million in the 2018/2019 consumption year and 1.49 million in the 2021/22 consumption year.

The projected acute food-insecure populations were the lowest in 2017/18 and 2019/20 consumption years, having registered 1 042 412 and 1 062 663 people, respectively

The post Starving AIP beneficiaries give Dodma a headache first appeared on The Nation Online.

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