Foreign tobacco trades on local market

In a twist of events, foreign tobacco, especially flue-cured leaf, is suspected to have been smuggled into Malawi from neighbouring countries, a development authorities say affects tobacco prices on the market.

Prior to this revelation, the story was that some local tobacco farmers were smuggling their leaf to neighbouring countries search of better prices.

However, during the last marketing season about eight million kilogrammes (kg) of flue-cured tobacco from foreign countries is suspected to have been sold at the local auction floors.

Speaking in an interview at Mpherembe in Mzimba on Saturday where Tobacco Association of Malawi (Tama) launched 2015 area meetings, Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) technical operations manager Frederick Kamvazina said tobacco smuggling is becoming a big problem in the region.

He said the coming in of eight million kg of flue-cured tobacco affected prices such that farmers in the country did not benefit much from their efforts.

Said Kamvazina: “As a country, we expected to sell 23 kilogrammes of flue-cured tobacco, but at the end of the market, it was found that 31 million kilogrammes made it to the market. We suspect that the excess tobacco was smuggled into the country.”

Kamvazina said TCC will strive to curb smuggling of tobacco in and out of Malawi.

He said TCC will work hand in hand with the police and Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) to police the illegal trade.n