Investigate GMB’s distribution of inputs

depots distributed the subsidised fertilisers.
If this is swept under the carpet, it will come back to haunt the nation in the next season.
We cannot continue to have a situation where taxpayers are made to subsidise people who have enough money to buy their own inputs at market prices.
If it is true that senior politicians, some of them ministers, took the bulk of the inputs, then action needs to be taken.
These politicians are shortchanging the very same people they will soon be asking for votes. They are letting themselves and their parties down.
The leadership of those parties must be worried by such activities, which will have the effect of alienating them from the people who have the power to either keep them in office or remove them.
The GMB depot managers know exactly who took what and why. They must be made to reveal the names of those politicians who allegedly took truckloads of fertilisers leaving villagers, who had queued for long hours, with nothing to put into their fields.
They must explain the criteria they used to distribute the fertilisers.
We are aware that those who took truckloads of fertilisers will be able to defend themselves considering that some of them delivered maize to the GMB and were not paid.
Most of them will justifiably say they took the fertilisers as payment for the grain delivered. After all the GMB had introduced a system where subsidised fertilisers could be used as payment for the grain.
But in the eyes of the people, all they see are the big shots taking most of the inputs. And in the absence of explanations they will conclude that the politicians are corrupt.
Again it is not just the politicians who are owed money by the GMB.
If the inputs were being used to pay for grain, then they should have been spread across the board so that it is not just the big fish that benefit.
Those who are found to have taken more than they are entitled to must be ordered to return the fertilisers to GMB depots so that it can find its way to the intended beneficiaries.
If the politicians and traditional leaders wanted the inputs, they should have taken what was rightfully due to them as farmers and not to commandeer trucks to their farms as is being alleged.
This is not the first time that reports have come through of politicians abusing their offices to take resources meant for vulnerable members of society.
Perhaps it is also time to question the integrity of some of those running the GMB. We wonder if they are the right people to be trusted with national resources.
Are they really faithful stewards who are accountable to the people?
All of a sudden there is a flood of fertilisers in the black market, suggesting a link between the GMB inputs at the depots and the flourishing of the informal markets.
However, it would be unfair to paint all politicians and GMB officials with the same brush. It appears that the number of depots and politicians involved is in the minority but what is shocking is the quantity of inputs allegedly misdirected.
In the long term, we need to think through the whole system of subsiding inputs and come up with a transparent way of getting inputs to the right people in time for them to put them to productive use.
We need to break this sense of entitlement among some politicians and traditional leaders. Instead, the spirit of servant leadership must be promoted.
Let those who have benefited from the land reform programme and other empowerment programmes be seen to be standing on their own. Or better still empowering those that are still struggling.
A way has to be found to empower the majority of the people directly. The Community Share Ownership programme involving foreign mining companies is a good example of how national resources can be made to benefit the people directly.
If managed properly people will soon see roads being developed, schools and clinics constructed.
They may not have money coming directly to their pockets but at least the infrastructure they need to be effective farmers and businesspeople would be available.