By Cathy Maulidi:
As the country inches deeper into the lean season, prospects of the maize situation do not suggest there could be any real redemption on the way quickly.
Early this year, government said up to 4.4 million Malawians will need food aid in the lean season and assured that it has a response plan in place.
At the heart of such a response is the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) which needs 164,000 metric tonnes of maize for the lean season.
But Malawi News can report that the country does not have such maize ready in its reserves at the moment.
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At present, the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) has 39, 763 tonnes only.
The Strategic Grain Reserves (SGR) stocks are however expected to increase to around 85,000MT based on the on-going replenishment processes and financial resources available to NFRA.
But even if this will be the case, the lean season response will still have a deficit of 80,000MT.
NFRA acting Chief Executive Officer David Loga has told us that the agency does not have adequate money to meet the deficit which Dodma needs.
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“At the moment we have money that was an additional tranche from our budget allocation. We also have money that we received in August as drought insurance.
“From the budget, we got an additional K5.1 billion and we got K7.7 billion from the African Risk Capacity drought insurance. But this is not enough and won’t be able to meet the lean season response requirement,” Loga said.
Using this money, NFRA put out tenders which, according to Loga, have been overwhelmingly responded to.
“We have offers of more than 400,000 metric tonnes but we only have money to buy 20,000 metric tons,” he said.
He added that the local maize is also fetching high prices ranging between K640 per kg and K1, 100 per kg since it is through competitive bidding.
To get a bit cheaper maize, Loga said government is in talks with Mozambique and Zambia to supply the country with maize.
Information we have indicates that Zambia’s maize is being sold at 300 Malawi Kwacha per kilogramme. However, since it is government to government business, Zambia may want to be paid in US dollars. That brings in another formidable challenge as Malawi is already grappling with forex crisis that had led to acute fuel shortage in the country.
We reported on Thursday this week that official figures show that the country’s gross official foreign exchange reserves had dropped to $239.56 million by August 31 2023 from $267.91 million in July 2023.
This means that the gross official foreign exchange reserves decreased to less than a month in August 2023 from just above one month in July 2023.
The internationally recommended forex cover is three months.
“Even if it comes to buying the maize abroad, we do not have money to meet the lean season deficit. Government has to come in and square that requirement,” Loga said.
Dodma spokesperson Chipiliro Khamula said the lean season response will run from this month to March next year.
“Each household is expected to receive a 50kg bag of maize,” Khamula said.
We contacted Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale on his Whatsapp for comment on the matter. He did not respond to us although there was an indication that he had seen the message.
We also contacted Principal Secretary for Agriculture responsible for technical services Medrina Mloza Banda. She promised to respond but did not even after a reminder.
Chairperson of the Agriculture Committee of Parliament Sameer Suleman has since said the current food crisis is man-made.
“We have been telling the government from day one to close the borders and stop any maize exports until we are sure of our balances, but they did not listen. Now we are going to Mozambique and Zambia trying to buy the same maize that we sold them at a very cheaper price.
“For us to get that maize which we sold in kwachas, we will have to pay in dollars. So now we are struggling with forex to buy fertilizer and fuel, where are we going to get forex for maize?
“Honestly, this is a man-made disaster that government has created. Government should take full responsibility for this crisis,” Suleman said.
Government has been propagating the narrative that it has maize in Admarc depots for Malawians to buy at a cheaper price, compared to the one on the private market.
Currently, maize in many markets is selling at a retail price of an unprecedented K850 per kg which is beyond reach of millions of Malawians
