TARGETED VS UNIVERSAL SUBSIDY

This article First appeared in Malawi News 1st February 2014.

As campaigning for positions in the impending tripartite elections heats up, some political players have apart from just promising the electorate that they will develop their areas, opted to point at some of what they think are development milestones of their past terms.

As an individual, I have no problems with someone campaigning on the lolani ntchito za manja anga zindichitire umboni slogan. My problem starts when those people start pointing at some things which in my candid opinion are supposed to be the very anti-thesis of development. For instance, while the fertilizer subsidy may have allowed some poor families to access farm inputs, there is literary nothing that we can really point to as being a contribution of the fertilizer subsidy apart from allowing some politicians to play gods in our communities.

Malawians perpetually live from hand to mouth. Despite such massive investment in the fertilizer subsidy, Malawians still trample upon each other fighting for 10 kilogram rations at the ADMARC depots, which hardly have the maize anyway.  Food is still a major campaign issue. It should not come as a surprise though when politicians deliberately create hunger by hoarding maize and then distribute the same maize as a campaign tool to hunger stricken communities.

Questions then have to be asked.  What really went wrong with the fertilizer subsidy. Where did we really miss it. In both definition and intent, the fertilizer subsidy was supposed to be a development tool and yet, nearly ten years from when the program was initiated, the Malawian poor are more disempowered, hopeless and clueless. The Malawian poor has moved from just being poor to being mega poor. All they can do is to simply wait for another  subsidy while as the year progresses they look forward to queuing at the very same ADMARC depots that can barely supply the food despite claiming  have surpluses.

The idea of a farm inputs subsidy program is in itself not a bad idea. Being, a backbone to our country’s development, there is indeed need for the country to help in raising agricultural production by ensuring that the agricultural inputs are not only cheap but also accessible to everyone.

However, it is the mere idea of targeting the beneficiaries that I find knotty.  With the approach that the government chose to pursue, the results of the fertilizer subsidy are hardly surprising.

In my opinion, once development agencies start targeting certain sections of the society in a development initiative that is meant to benefit the entire society, the likelihood of that initiative succeeding is almost nullified. The farm inputs subsidy program therefore had its chances to succeed reduced almost to zero even just after its initial roll out, due to the fact that other key players who would have made the initiative succeed were left out of the whole set up.

This I reckon  is the common mistake that most development institutions make.  Often times, development practitioners have made the mistake of thinking that the poor people they target live as an isolated entity in the community. Due to such a poor perception, those perceived to be rich or ultra rich have been pushed out of the development process as the institutions unliterary want to develop the ultra poor. As in the case of the fertilizer subsidy, the results, have been disastrous. Perhaps this explains why despite the millions of dollars being poured into the country through both the government and the NGOs, there is very little impact on the levels of poverty in the country.

By alienating those who are rich in the community, the poor being targeted are made more vulnerable and exposed to the greed of the society’s rich. The fertilizer subsidy, in as much as it had good intent as a development tool, has fallen prey to the same common development trap that has failed so many projects before it. Consequently, most of the fertilizer and the other inputs supplied have not benefited the intended beneficiary as the rich and the ultra rich have ended up exploiting the vulnerability of the poor and the ultra poor by buying  the very same inputs that were earmarked to help the poor move out of the hunger trap. Eventually the mega rich have continued to absurdly amass wealth while the vulnerable get more vulnerable.

This is why in my view, the universal fertilizer subsidy makes sense.  For instance, everyone who wants fertilizer will have to buy it from the established market which will naturally abolish the advantage that the rich had over the poor.

The system will also ensure that only those who are ready to use the fertilizer can go and buy the same as opposed to the present scenario whereby as all the poor receive the fertilizer regardless of whether they need it or not. With the rich vendor like a vulture already waiting to snatch the fertilizer from the same farmer, the subsidized farm input program has simply been reduced to a quick cash cow with no visible impact on food production in the communities.

The universal fertilizer subsidy will naturally stifle the corruption that is now synonymous with the program. Further, the advantage that the politician has, that allows them to play gods in our communities will also vanish since no person will be required to bow at the feet of any particular politician to increase their chances of receiving the subsidized farm inputs.

Given all the problems that the targeted farm input subsidy program presented  which the universal subsidy promises to eliminate, wouldn’t toying with the universal subsidy make a whole lot of sense?.