Presidential Well-Wishers Special Agriculture Input Scheme (PWSAIS)

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The Presidential Well-Wishers Special Agriculture Input Scheme (PWSAIS) was launched in the 2010/2011 agricultural season. The input scheme objectively sought to avail agriculture inputs at no costs to the farmers by the President as a response to the poor funding of agriculture by the Inclusive Government (Herald, 2010). The justification was that the Finance Ministry was stifling funding to agriculture so as to sabotage the Zanu PF government’s land reform program (the then Minister of Finance was the Honorable Tendai Biti from the former opposition Movement of Democratic Change (MDC)).

Inputs Allocation

The PWSAIS sourced inputs such as maize seeds and fertilizers and distributed them to provinces which then distributed to farmers in districts in turn. The scheme targeted 800,000 farmers, including resettled farmers and smallholder and large-scale farmers. It also distributed inputs to communal farmers who were supposed to be the majority beneficiaries. Inputs were largely distributed through ZANU PF structures, hence allegations that opposition supporters were not allocated inputs, particularly in communal areas such as Muzarabani, Chipinge, Gokwe Nembudziya, Mudzi South, and Murehwa North. In most provinces, the large quantities of fertilizers were reportedly looted by senior politicians, resulting in even ZANU PF supporters failing to access the inputs. It should be noted that the PWSAIS has become a yearly input scheme, hence efforts should be made to improve its transparency so as to benefit targeted households.


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