By Iommie Chiwalo
The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) has requested Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament to summon stakeholders in the tea and macadamia industries in Thyolo, Mulanje and Nkhata Bay.
In a press statement accessed by this reporter and authenticated by CDEDI Executive Director Sylvester Namiwa, the organization wants PAC to critically investigate if the estates are really helpful to a common man in a way of measuring their contribution to the country’s Growth Domestic Product (GDP).
According to Namiwa, PAC’s intervention will clear fears that the Government of Malawi is in some undesirable agreements with owners of these estates. He says the probe will also clear rumors that tea proceeds do not see their way back to Malawi after being sent to the estates’ beneficial owners in Britain.
“PAC’s timely intervention will address the question as to whether there is justification for providing land much-needed by Malawians to the tea and macadamia industries in Thyolo, Mulanje and Nkhata Bay, which are not contributing to the country’s GDP— save for ‘enslaving’ our people in the pretext of providing them employment.
There are also issues of non-payment of tax and non-disclosure of proceeds which raises the million-dollar question as to who is benefitting from such agreements?,” wonders Namiwa.
He says in light of lack such transparency and accountability, it is disheartening to see that more people are losing jobs at the plantations as the estates are resorting to replacing manual labour with advanced technologies.
“Actually, some estates have completely abandoned tea production and are now in poultry production while others are diversifying into other non-traditional industries, in desperate attempts to cling onto the land and as if that is not enough, there is also excessive use of chemicals that is posing a threat to the safety of the locals and, indeed, the ecosystem,” he says.
Adding that for those that are still in the tea production, some have thrown all caution to the wind and no longer care about the welfare of their surrounding communities.
“They are not carrying out any corporate social responsibilities. They are even failing to maintain the roads in their own estates and in some cases water pipes to the estates merely pass through villages where people drink water from unprotected sources,” he noted.
CDEDI has since asked PAC to intervene and ensure that all estates in the country are contributing to the larger good or else surrender the land.
He said the secrecy in the tea industry is disturbing, especially when one considers that during every tobacco growing season Malawians get to know how much tobacco they produced, and how much the country earned from its sales, however such transparency and accountability is lacking in the tea, coffee, tung and macadamia produced in Thyolo, Mulanje, Nkhata Bay and other districts.
“Needless to say those citizens in the said districts feel isolated, and being treated as less human beings since they do not have land which is one of the most fundamental natural resources available to man for social and economic development in the agro-based Malawi economy,” Namiwa said.
The CDEDI Executive Director is convinced that, at the current status, the landless people have been disenfranchised from their right to economic activities and, most importantly, for decades, they have been denied right to food, which is one of the basic human rights.
Namiwa says, as it stands, the much-touted Malawi 2063 development agenda will be difficult to attain if the wrongs happening in the tea, coffee, tung and macadamia industries remain uncorrected.
“Now is time for PAC to do the needful,” PAC Chairperson Shadreck Namalomba confirmed the receipt of the petition and promised to take necessary action that will ensure smooth approach that benefits all concerned parties.
