By CIC Investigations.
UPND ENEMIES PLOT TO RE-INTRODUCE EVOUCHER TO MAKE UPND FAIL.
A dubious scheme to bring back the complicated, corruption laden eVoucher is under way in the ministry of agriculture. See the attached Ministry of agriculture documents.
The main aim and goal is to deliberately mess up the 2023/24 farming season so that the UPND can lose the support of farmers and voters at large.
Four days ago, agriculture minister Rueben Mtolo Phiri announced that the process to tender for governments contracts under the Farmer Input Support Program (FISP) would be done within February 2023. This, he said, was to make sure that the procurement, supply and distribution of farming inputs including fertiliser for the next farming season is seamless. What he didn’t announce to the public is that there are immediate plans to re- introduce eVoucher . This is the evoucher program which even the PF government abandoned completely except in Southern province where it was implemented to punish the people that hail from there for supporting UPND.
As can be seen, In this ministry of agriculture document, they are planning 100% eVoucher for Southern Province yet again, while in other provinces they are treading carefully? Why ? In other provinces, they have selected some districts to test their new version of this corrupt evoucher program. But they want to implement it in Southern province in all districts at 100 per cent.
This is clearly political, those who want president Hichilema to fail and lose elections in 2026 are targeting to mess up Southern province so that the people there can stop supporting the UPND. If this is a good program, why do they want to implement it only in selected districts of other provinces but 100 per cent in Southern province alone. It’s a pity that the so called intelligence is sleeping or pulling in different directions otherwise some of this nonsense should not see the light of the day.
Why do they want to subject the people to this highly inefficient and corrupt system yet again?
The eVoucher is prone to fraud, corruption and price hikes by Agro Dealers and farmers are manipulated by Agro Dealers as they spend endless nights camping at their shops to access inputs. In some cases, farmers are compelled to get undesired inputs.
But the middle men get the profits.
The initiators of the Evoucher were the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) some time back. ZNFU abandoned the eVoucher program after realising that it was not efficient and only benefited agro dealers and other thieves but not the intended small-scale farmers. But now, under the new program ZNFU has been excluded from the entire process and instead the ministry of agriculture invited Chance Kabaghe and his organization (IAPRI) to manipulate the process.
There is this daring propensity by the ministry of agriculture to exclude major stakeholders like ZNFU from forums such as FISP. One wonders the motive?
Chance Kabaghe sits on the PF committee on agriculture chaired by Given Lubinda. Do you expect Chance Kabaghe and IAPRI to support UPND genuinely? (We challenge Chance Kabaghe to deny this revelation and we shall produce material evidence of his membership on this committee which includes several other individuals).
We hear some PF linked individuals are being told to form Agro dealerships in readiness for this decision.
Clearly the agenda is evil as it’s intended to mess up this farming season yet again and thereby render UPND and President Hichilema unelectable in 2026. UPND only has this farming season to improve the Agric sector .
The President must keep a close eye on Ministry of agriculture and Chance Kabaghe.
This season’s input distribution exercise was a near disaster and we seem not to have learnt our lesson. The vultures are ready to pounce again even this year.
If the next farming season is mishandled then we will be headed for a serious political, social and food crisis. This is what the opposition are praying for.
Furthermore, a closer look at this document shows a
reduction in fertilizer allocations to farmers from six (6) to four (4) bags? This looks retrogressive. We should be growing numbers and not reducing them.
We also note some funny terminology in the document such as ‘Graduate Farmers’ this rhetoric is not necessary as most of our farmers need government support. Where do farmers graduate to? Instead, farmers need proper financial support through and through and not graduating them into some imaginary world as Mtolo and Chance seem to suggest.
To be forewarned is to be fore-armed. But unfortunately, even at State House there are hyenas, chameleons and vultures who are only looking at how they can personally benefit from this. Sometime we feel sorry for president Hichilema for we can clearly see how events will unfold. We have been in this game for close to two decades now and we know the signs and can easily interpret events.
We rest our case.
CIC PRESS TEAM
