Ethanol Company Limited (EthCO), a subsidiary of conglomerate Press Corporation Limited (PCL), on Friday paid out K22 million to residents of Nkhotakota for land the company acquired to construct a sugar processing mill.
EthCO General Manager Lusubilo Chakaniza said the company paid out the resettlement money to the villagers at Mpondagaga to acquire the 14 hectares of land to increase its ethanol production.
“We engaged the community to understand the benefit of the project and we used a ccompany called Mlambe Consulting so that we follow due process. We also engaged government on the matter through the District Commissioners’ office in Nkhotakota,” said Chakaniza “We are happy that we have paid out the people without any problems and we will now focus on processing the lease of the land so that we should start our project of constructing the sugar mill to increase our production,” added Chakaniza.
She said currently EthCO depends on sugar molasses from nearby Illovo Sugar Malawi for the production about eight million litres but said production will double to about 17 million litres with the coming in of the sugar mill factory as the company will be producing ethanol straight from sugar syrup.
Chakaniza said the company is looking at a period of three years for the full implementation of the project which is estimated to employ about 100 people but will benefit more than 1,000 farmers around the area who will be selling their sugarcane to EthCO.
Speaking earlier, TA Mphonde hailed EthCO for bringing the project to his area saying it will transform a lot of lives.
“I know that we are going to benefit with the construction of the factory here through irrigation, electricity and jobs but more importantly, sugarcane farmers will reduce transport costs as they will be selling their sugarcane right here as compared to the 65 kilometres when they were selling their sugarcane at Dwangwa,” said Mphonde.
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