Why Did The President Inform The Nation That The Country Had No Maize While Most Of It Was Rotting In The Silos? Cama’s press release on rotten maize in silos

Why Did The President Inform The Nation That The Country Had No Maize While Most Of It Was Rotting In The Silos?

The Consumers Association of Malawi is demanding the government to set up a Commission of Inquiry to establish the reasons why huge stocks of maize got rotten in the Silos especially during and at a time a lot of Malawians are queuing every day and night and fail to get the commodity at Admarc markets.
What is shocking and surprising is that both the leadership of this country and the management of Grain Reserve Agency seemed and sounded to be surprised with the news that they have rotten maize in their own warehouses and this has been confirmed though press briefings.
It has always been our belief that Malawi has had stocks of maize and that someone somewhere was withholding the release of that maize to assist the many poor Malawians that continue to suffer as they cannot access the maize. Most shocking is the revelation from the President that most of the maize was unable to be moved to Admarc markets due to transport logistics when throughout this difficult period she is the very person who maintained that Malawi had no maize in her reserves.
We therefore would want the Commission of Inquiry to carry out investigation on the following:
• The total quantity of rotten maize that was found in our Silos
•Why the president informed the nation that the country had no maize while most of it was rotting in the Silos
• Whether indeed transport logistics was the main reason why maize was not being moved to Admarc Markets as claimed by the President
•Where did the President get her own maize she kept distributing throughout the difficult period
•What triggered the higher prices of maize when the country had enough stocks of maize rotting in the Silos
•Under whose authority did the private sector export the maize from the country as claimed by the President
•What was the role of the state to ensure that Admarc markets were adequately supplied with maize during the difficult period
As indicated above a lot of people during this period continue to suffer and some have resorted to eating tubers and it is also our belief that we might have lost lives because of this negligence.
It is therefore in the interest of everybody that Malawians need to be given proper information as to what happened for people to be subjected to this type of inhuman treatment. We believe that food is a human right issue and any abuse that puts the lives of people at risk deliberately must properly be investigated.
We strongly believe that the current shortage of maize supply on the market could have been handled professionally as has been in the past five years or so. We are therefore demanding an independent and properly constituted Commission of Inquiry that can establish the right information as to why we had to let Malawians suffer in the search for maize and whose prices are unaffordable.
Yours faithfully,

John Kapito
Executive Director.