Malawi fears farm inputs will be late if budget remains in limbo

Malawi has expressed fears that its forthcoming farming season could be put in serious jeopardy due to the delayed passing of the national budget by the country’s parliament.

The country has in the past two years been successfully implementing a subsidy fertiliser programme in which the inputs like seeds and fertiliser are sold at reduced prices to poor farmers nationwide.

The result has been a 1.8-million tonne food surplus in the 2005/06 and 2006/07 farming seasons.

Due to this massive food surplus, Malawi is this year able to export 400,000 tonnes of maize to food deficit Zimbabwe.

So far the country has transported 93,000 tonnes of maize to Harare, according to Binton Kuntsaira, Malawi’s deputy agriculture and food security minister.

But in the next farming season, all this may be jeopardised since government has no funds to import the farm inputs, especially fertiliser, the minister said.

His remarks on Wednesday came after uncertainty continues to surround the resumption of parliament amid continued disagreements between the opposition (which has the majority in parliament) and government on what to discuss first in the House — the budget as proposed by the government or the court ruling’s on Section 65 of the constitution as demanded by the opposition.

The court decision validates the expulsion of MPs who defected to the government side from the House. Unlike the opposition, the government argues this can wait after the House has discussed the budget.

It is this stand-off that has put the whole budget affair on hold, leaving parliament to remain adjourned sine die.

In the Wednesday interview, the minister said his ministry has greatly been affected by the budget impasse in parliament, unable to order the farm inputs from abroad, due to lack of funds.

So far, no known efforts are being made by both the government and the opposition to solve the problem, despite some sectors calling for a roundtable discussion between the two sides.

The leader of government business in the House, Henry Chimunthu Banda, shelved any chances of a round table discussion to solve the impasse.

He insisted that the solution to the current situation was the need for the parliamentarians to recognise what should be the priority between the court ruling’s implementation and the pro-poor budget.