The Malawi Enterprise Development Fund (MEDF) says it is likely to incur greater losses after a parliamentary directive halted the disposal of farm inputs, with some of the stock now having expired or deteriorated beyond resale.
MEDF Chief Executive Officer Kayisi Sadala said the fund had planned to dispose of excess fertiliser and seed worth between K15 billion and K16 billion after warning Parliament earlier this year that the items risked expiring if action was delayed.
Instead, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) ordered the fund to suspend the sale pending a forensic audit of the stock.
Months later, Sadala says the delay has come at a cost.
“Between the time we appeared before Parliament in January and now, quite a number of things have happened. Some items have expired, while others have deteriorated to the point where they can no longer be sold,” he sadala as qouted by Daily Times on Monday.
Sadala said a Board of Survey, comprising MEDF officials and specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Pesticides Control Board, has completed a fresh assessment of the stock.
The report will determine the current value of the remaining inputs and identify those that have become unusable.
“It is through that report that we will know the value of the items that can still be disposed of and those that have completely gone to waste,” he said.
The planned disposal remains on hold as MEDF also awaits completion of a forensic audit covering the fund’s operations between 2020 and December 2025.
In an interview with Daily Times PAC chairperson Steven Baba Malondera defended the committee’s decision to stop the sale, saying it was based on recommendations from Parliament’s Statutory Corporations Committee.
He said Parliament was exercising its oversight role and could not allow the disposal of the inputs before the audit findings were presented.
The farm inputs are part of loan packages distributed by MEDF, formerly the National Economic Empowerment Fund, over the past four years.
Many of the unsold stocks remain in the fund’s depots across the country, with the latest assessment expected to determine the extent of losses caused by the delay.
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