The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Kondwani Nankhumwa has written the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) to investigate reports of human rights violations that farmers seeking fertilizer under the Affordable Input Program (AIP) are allegedly being subjected to.

In his letter addressed to MHRC executive secretary Habiba Osman, Nankhumwa has requested the institution to investigate why government officials are obtaining money from farmers upfront on a promise they would get the fertilizer later and yet they do not get.

Reads the letter: “there are documented cases of government agents going village by village in Mchinji, Ntchisi, Mulanje, and Chitipa, among others collecting money for AIP fertilizer from farmers whilst promising to give them fertilizer at a later date.”

This he says is unprecedented in the history of fertilizer subsidy programs in this country, and it is wrong.

He adds that it is unrealistic that government takes money from poor farmers without giving them the commodity when the rains are already here, and they are already late in applying the fertilizer in their fields.

The leader of opposition says this act is immoral and a total violation of human rights as food is considered a human right across the world.

In a related development, on Monday morning people from about twelve villages, most of which women under Group Village Headman Kalungwe, Traditional Authority Likoswe in Chiradzulu marched to the district headquaters to force authorities to return their K30, 000 for this year’s Affordable Input Program (AIP) as they have not accessed the AIP fertilizer despite already paying for the commodity in December last year.