Tanzania has closed its borders for Malawi’s agricultural products in retaliation to the ban on its exports.
The East African country has also extended a similar ban to South Africa.
In a televised address, Tanzania’s Agriculture Minister Hussein Bashe said, effective Wednesday [yesterday], agricultural exports from Malawi will not be allowed into the country.
“It is now illegal for any agricultural products from Malawi to enter Tanzania starting today. Besides that, for those two [South Africa and Malawi] countries, and especially Malawi, we will not allow any agricultural products on transit to get through Tanzania,” he said.
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The minister added that all the maize which Malawi bought from Tanzania to solve the food crisis will not be delivered.
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“On the first of May, they [Malawi] were to start collecting fertiliser from Tanzania in preparation for their planting season. We will not allow any fertilisers to go to Malawi. I want to say that this move does not endanger the nation and food security in Tanzania”
“There’s no Tanzanian who will die for the lack of South African grapes or apples. So, we are taking this move to protect our business. This is a business [transaction] and we must respect one another,” he said.
According to the BBC, South Africa has also been in a trade war with Tanzania after the former has, for years, prohibited the entry of bananas from the latter.
Bashe added that diplomatic efforts to address the issue had failed and that fresh talks were ongoing.
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Malawi attracted the wrath of Tanzania when, last month, the Ministry of Trade and Industry announced an import ban on some products such as fresh milk, maize flour, rice, fruits except products that are not cultivated or produced in the country.
But, last week, the Tanzanian government hit back at Malawi when, through X, the country’s Bashe said the move by Malawi would affect traders who export such products to Malawi.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Trade and Industry Patrick Botha Thursday said they were yet to get official communication on the issue.
“We are hearing [about] this from social media. At an appropriate time, we will comment,” he said.
Our sources told us yesterday that, for the first time since the imports debacle started, Malawi’s Foreign Affairs Ministry officials reached out to officials at the Tanzanian High Commission to Malawi.
When contacted, the ministry’s public relations officer Charles Nkhalamba said ministry officials from Trade and Industry, Foreign Affairs, Information and other departments were meeting on the matter and that, afterwards, the Minister of Information would communicate with relevant stakeholders through a statement
Last week, Bashe expressed worry that diplomatic efforts to engage Malawi had been unsuccessful.
“I can confirm that as responsible minister, I had contacted the Minister of Agriculture of Malawi [Sam Kawale] in various ways without success in getting a response,” he said.
Last week, Kawale told The Daily Times that the issue was a trade one, such that Ministry of Trade officials were better-placed to comment.
Last week, Tanzania warned that if Malawi did not change its position on the matter by Wednesday [yesterday], it would ban imports from Malawi.
Information and Digitalisation Minister Moses Kunkuyu was quoted by The Daily times on Wednesday as saying that the government had always engaged with its neighbours on a number of issues that touch on bilateral relations.
“So those continuous engagements yield positive results. As you know, we had this kind of a situation not very long ago, last year, and, through dialogue, we found ourselves in a position of resolving all those issues and we continue with trade between the two countries,” Kunkuyu said.
However, some quarters faulted the Malawi Government for rushing to impose the ban before following other bilateral trade protocols.
“The government should not reverse [the imports ban] but proper bilateral trade agreements need to be made. We must ask the government, on the other hand, to ensure a very conducive business environment exists in Malawi so that our products should be competitive and drive foreign products out,” Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises Executive Secretary James Chiutsi said.
Governance and international relations expert Chimwemwe Tsitsi said what mattered was following necessary modalities when coming up with such decisions.
“You recall that we have been talking about Comesa [Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa] and Sadc [Southern African Development Community] free trade area and I think there is some progress achieved to that effect. So, if a member country imposes a ban on importation of some products, there are some procedures that are supposed to be followed,” he said.
