By Draxon Maloya
Lilongwe, Malawi (News Of The South) – Some stakeholders in Malawi’s tobacco industry have expressed reservations with the new tobacco industry act which was established on 22nd February this year.
The Chief Executive officer for the Tobacco Association of Malawi (TAMA), Felix Thole made it clear that the new piece of legislation, the tobacco Industry Act Number 10 of 2019 has some grey areas which shall impinge the smooth operations of some players in the tobacco industries.
Tobacco stakeholders in Malawi
Thole expressed his fears at the stakeholders outreach programme launch organised by the Tobacco Commission (TC) at Themba la Mathemba Chikulamayembe office grounds at Bolero in Rumphi District on Saturday morning.
“The law says there should be no any deductions of services through the marketing operator so this will affect our operations, you know we have satellite depots which operate on the fee we get from such deductions straight at the market,” Thole said.
And in his remarks the Controller of Agriculture Services in the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Alexander Masankho Bulirani said the new law has been formulated in such a way that small grower tobacco farmers are not exploited in any way.
“Government deliberately came up with this Tobacco Industry Bill Act as one way of ensuring that smallholder farmers are not exploited as the case has been in the past, and also this law also ensures the conservation of our natural resources,” Bulirani said.
Speaking during question time one of the farmers who is also a traditional leader, Principal Kazamawe expressed disappointment with the pricing of tobacco at the auction floors which he said is almost giving free tobacco to the buyers.
“We have received this act whole heartedly it might bring a cake on the table as farmers, but the way tobacco is sold at the auction floors is just almost surrendering the commodity to the buyer at no price at all, think about the price of farm inputs,” Kazamawe said.
The new tobacco act which promotes contract farming has nineteen parts split into 118 sections which among others also regulate the transporters.
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