Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Kondwani Nankhumwa, says it is the expectation of his ministry that all the suppliers who were awarded contracts to supply fertilizers and seeds to the remote and hard to reach areas, under FISP initiative, have fulfilled their duties by now.

Nankhumwa said his ministry had given the suppliers a period of three weeks, starting from early October, to reach all the areas with the commodity or their contracts will be terminated.

Roads in most remote areas in the country are in bad condition and vehicles cannot pass during the rainy season a development which prohibits suppliers to deliver the farm inputs.

Nankhumwa said: “When we launched FISP program on October 15 the suppliers had already secured the contracts and the agreement with them was that they WOUL reach the remote areas that become unreachable during the rains within the three weeks which I believe that by now most areas are reached.”

Nankhumwa further said officials from his ministry and Smallholder Farmers Fertilizer Revolving Fund of Malawi – SFFRFM are on the ground monitoring the situation and they will come up with a report soon.

“Our officials are monitoring the progress of the work and probably they will come up with their report next week and if we find some suppliers who fail to reach such areas then their contracts will be terminated and offered to others.”

On the progress of coupons distribution exercise, Nankhumwa said as of last week only two district were remaining in the southern region, which usually becomes first to receive rains and the exercise is currently under way in the central region and is believed to finish by mid-November.

2019/2020 FISP program is targeting 900, 000 resource poor farm families with fertilizers and legume seeds and 57 private companies were cleared and contracts awarded to them for supply and retailing of the farm inputs.