Maravi

Caritas urges government to solve FISP problems

Caritas urges government to solve FISP problems
By Maluba Jere
Sat 03 Dec. 2011, 13:00 CAT

CARITAS Zambia executive director Sam Mulafulafu says the PF government should find solutions to the problems surrounding the FISP instead of blaming the previous government over the past failures.

Reacting to the suspension of the distribution of farming inputs by Omnia, Mulafulafu said suspending the distribution of inputs at the start of a farming season was a serious situation that needed immediate attention.

"The last regime defaulted in this programme. But the government needs to find a solution," he said.

"People who suffer are the farmers, so there is need for the government to find a solution and not say it is the previous government that failed to pay the suppliers. That is why they were elected."

Omnia have suspended the distribution of farming inputs to farmers to press government to pay the outstanding debts owed to the two companies.

And last week, Vice-President Guy Scott told Parliament that the delay in distributing farming inputs for the 2011/2012 farming season was as a result of the debt the government had to settle with suppliers.

Mulafulafu also said there was need to review the policy on the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) to ensure the intended results are attained.

"We are in the middle of the rainy season and farmers cannot be stranded with no inputs," he said. "The whole policy needs to be reviewed. This is something that needs to be thought through to see what exactly works."

Mulafulafu further said the FISP programme was marred with corruption a situation which led to a number of farmers not benefitting from it.

"People who are entitled get marginalised by those who are selfish and sell the inputs to get cash," he said.

"The big issue to implement is to ensure it achieves its intended role. To start with, the so-called cooperatives distributing these inputs just breed more corruption because most farmers ended up not getting their entitlement."

He added that the government's decision to use chiefs to distribute inputs was the worst ever, saying some chiefs would not be impartial in carrying out this duty.

Mulafulafu said the distribution of farmer inputs should be done by technical people other than chiefs saying they chiefs had their own problems and issues to deal with.

"There is no doubt there are some good chiefs but a good number of them cannot be trusted with such an important undertaking. Some of them convert things to personal use," said Mulafulafu. "We have had situations where chiefs have been given things to distribute but those things just end up in their palaces."

Labels: CARITAS, FISP, PF, SAM MULAFULAFU

posted by MrK @ 9:17 PM