MPs take to task minister over Admarc

Malawi’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Peter Mwanza faced pressure in Parliament on Tuesday to explain why Admarc is failing to perform and manage food in the country.

Mwanza was also undersiege when he kept a continued response of “point taken” to various questions raised by Members of Parliament regarding the performance of Admarc and food situation in the country.

Tired with a similar response, the house broke into noise and MP for Chitipa North Nick Masebo asked Speaker of Parliament Henry Chimunthu Banda to ask the Minister to provide relevant responses to the members.

“We submit these questions in advance so that the line Ministry should prepare responses before coming here so why is the Hon. Minister giving us the same response to all questions? We expect him to give us reasonable answers and not point taken. Mr Speaker Sir! Please intervene,” said Masebo.

MP for Lilongwe City Central Shadreck Jonas asked the Minister to explain why 60 metric tons of maize was left to rot at a timemany Malawians were spending nights outside Admarc depots to buy the commodity.

He also asked the minister to explain what Admarc is doing about the food situation.

Although, Mwanza denied that the quantity of maize that went bad is 60 metric tons, he could not say the right quantity.

He also said Admarc has already started buying maize from farmers to keep enough maize for next year.

“Right now, Admarc has already started buying maize from farmers, especially in the South and Centre and soon markets will also be opened in the North,” he said.

Dowa Ngala MP Ewart Gawanani said Admarc is weak on setting prices and gives an opportunity to vendors who dupe farmers.

He said the Ministry of Agriculture should also check the integrated tobacco farming system and put in place measures that will protect farmers from exploitation.

“Admarc’s failure to control prices of buying products such as maize from farmers is giving an advantage to the vendors to rip farmers. Now the vendors control the prices because the mother buyer Admarc is weak.

“Another thing is the integrated tobacco farming system. In this system, farmers are only used because what they get does not match their production. The win ners in this system are government and buyers. In this case, generate control measures that will see to it that farmers as well are benefiting,” said Gawanani.