Govt mismanaging hunger—Cisanet

Civil Society Agriculture Network (Cisanet), an umbrella body of non-governmental organisations that advocate for people’s rights to food, has said government is mismanaging the hunger the country is faced with.

In a position paper issued yesterday by the network titled ‘Malawi Hunger, a degrading situation and violation of human rights’ Cisanet says it has established that government has failed to come out clean on whether the country has enough maize stock or not.

“Government should avoid sending wrong or unconfirmed and some contradictory messages to the public as this causes undue panic and can spur speculations and distort market prices,” says Cisanet in the paper.

It points out that most recent reports indicate that both the President and the Minister of Agriculture issued statements to the effect that there is inadequate maize stocks in the country against earlier statements issued when the donors visited the Strategic Grain Reserves (SGR), which indicated that there are sufficient amounts in the public storage.

“We would like therefore to request that a Ministerial statement be issued that will state the situation of the Grain Reserves and also outline the gravity of the hunger situation and what the Government is doing about it,” says Cisanet.

In December 2012, Cisanet released a press statement on the hunger situation in Malawi where among many issues it pointed out some shortfalls being experienced in the response to the hunger situation in Malawi.

“Three months down the line, the hunger situation has been exacerbated by floods and other natural disasters also coupled with lack of capacity for Admarc to cope with the increasing demand for maize,” observes the network in yesterday’s statement.

Cisanet says a lot of people are now spending hours on end on queues at Admarc depots having travelled a long distance and sometimes spending more money for transport than the 10 kilogrammes they are buying from Admarc.

“Cisanet feels this to be a mockery to the hunger situation and urgent action needs to be taken,” it says, calling on government to issue instructions to Admarc to immediately increase the ration to at least 25 kilogrammes.

The price of maize has soared from the government recommended price of K3, 500/50kgs to K10, 000/50kgs making it unaffordable by the average poor family in rural and urban areas of Malawi.

Cisanet further requests government to restock Admarc markets that have no maize especially those that are in the rural areas.

When contacted for comment, spokesperson for Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security Sara Ndione asked for more time to consult with Principal Secretary in the ministry in order to give out a credible reaction.