By Mcloyd Chilangiza:
Chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Social and Community Affairs Savel Kafwafwa has underscored the need for companies to boost value addition on products for export market to grow revenue.
Kwafwafwa was speaking on Friday when committee members inspected corporate social responsibility works initiated by Old Mutual in partnership with Gala Macs Company Limited in Namitete, Lilongwe District.
Kafwafwa said companies should scale up efforts to export processed products to generate more foreign currency.
“In Malawi, industry players come up with products and we are exporting raw macadamia nuts of about 4,000 tonnes. That is a lot and that makes our product cheaper and bulky.
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“This means the transportation cost will be high; so, we are emphasising to Old Mutual and other stakeholders to invest in processing the macadamia nuts so that we can do some value addition to generate foreign currency,”Kafwafwa said.
He also hailed the two companies for their various development initiatives and urged them to continue giving back to the communities surrounding the area.
Old Mutual Investment Group Managing Director Mark Mikwamba said the firm will continue giving back to the community.
“One sustainable ways is creating a business that provides employment to the people surrounding the area. And that is the benefit of Gala Macs, a company, is employing thousands of people and these people are able to support their families,” Mikwamba said.
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Gala Macs Company Limited Country Executive Officer Christo Bothma said they embarked on corporate social responsibility work to reduce the levels of poverty by offering employment to people in the area.
“We saw that people were suffering in a tobacco farm and we decided to bring in macadamia so that we can employ a lot of people to reduce poverty,” he said
Old Mutual Investment Group invested 60 billion under Ulimi fund and Gala Macs Company Limited has employed over 1300 permanent workers with 250 to 400 seasonal workers in the country.
