Disaster Commissioner calls for sanity during lean season cash transfers

Commissioner for Disaster Management Affairs in the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA) Charles Kalemba has underscored the importance of maintaining peace during the disbursement of relief funds for the Lean season.

Kalemba made the remarks during an inspection of cash disbursement to 3049 households at Ngolowindo, Vao Vao, and Maganga primary school in the area of Traditional Authority Maganga in Salima District on Wednesday.

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Each family is receiving MK50,000 for the months of January and February, initially, each household is supposed to receive K25,000 in the months of January, February, and March.

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He said the government’s wish is to alleviate hunger by assisting households with cash so that they can buy food. 

“We would like to see communities make proper use of the money given to them during this exercise, and not divert the money to other use not related to food purchasing,” he said.

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He noted that in some districts reports of beneficiaries paying chiefs as a token of appreciation for being selected as beneficiaries were reaching his office.

He, therefore, warned against such practices of taking advantage of beneficiaries since they would wish to be included in similar exercises in the future.

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He encouraged the beneficiaries to work hard in their farming, so that next year they should be food secure.

District Commissioner for Salima Grace Chirwa Kanyimbiri said her office is closely monitoring the exercise so that all the intended beneficiaries receive their cash.

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She said at the moment, the district has not registered any irregularities since the disbursement commenced on 28th January 2023.

About 15,000 households from Salima district will benefit from the cash transfer after the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Mvac) projected that 3.8 million people in Malawi will face hunger between November 2022 and March 2023.