By Alick Mhango
Lezo produce suppliers one of the most renown produce company in Malawi, have asked Non Governmental Organization (NGOs) in the country to civic educate maize buyers especially those that purchase from different ADMARC deports as one way of reducing the tendency of vendors to have an upper hand in the maize meat for poor Malawians.
Speaking to Nyasa Times on Monday after visiting various ADMARC depots in Karonga the northern part of Malawi, the Managing Director of Lezo produce suppliers Lenard Kiyombo said despite government efforts to supply maize in various deports across the country, most of the intended people are not being reached with the products.
According to Kiyombo, the vendors are having an upper hand in purchasing the maize as they are taking advantage of illiterate people who are always on the queue waiting only to buy a 20 kilogram of the produce.
“As Lezo produce suppliers, we had a survey in all the ADMARC deports in Malawi especially here in Karonga and we can witness that maize is being distributed everywhere and in all the districts deports, on top of that ADMARC officials have come up with a good strategy of opening deports branches in different areas in order to reduce long queues from the main deport, we therefore thank government for that,” said Kiyombo.
“However, the remain problem is that the vendors take an advantage of the availability of maize to enrich themselves as they secretly buy the maize and sell them at higher price, they might whether bribe the officials at the ADMARC or they can also use villagers by cheating them that they will be given money at the end. So this where the NGOs should come in and civic educate these people [villagers/admarc maize buyers] the dangers of the malpractice so that they should restrain themselves from being used.”
Adding that “they can also be educated on how to make sure that transparency and accountability is being practiced at their various deports by constructing maize buyers’ committee to be monitoring the ADMARC staffs so that all the maize delivered at the deport reach those in need, instead of just making noise that government is failing to reach people with the maize, as NGOs they should see the root cause of the problem and address it.”
Concurring with Kiyombo, the village headman Jeremiah of senior chief Wasambo in the same district well come the idea while describing it as the only solution of dealing with the vendors especially on maize issue.
Jeremiah wondered why the NGOs are not taking this issue seriously despite being the major challenges affecting many Malawians.
