Already struggling to purchase maize from Admarc depots, hungry Malawians are suffering a double blow as Admarc officials are cheating them on the weight of the maize they buy, a Malawi News investigation has established.
We can report that the officials are fiddling with the scales they use in selling maize to buyers such that in some cases, poor Malawians are carrying home half of what they think they have purchased.
Most Malawians rely on parastatal Admarc depots as it sells the maize at a far cheaper price than the parallel market.
In the past week, we visited selected Admarc depots in Chiradzulu, Zomba and Blantyre armed with a weighing scale we hired from a Malawi Bureau of Standards certified weighing scales supplier.
At Namadidi and Thondwe depots in Zomba, we discovered that buyers were taking home less quantities of the staple grain than what they thought they had bought.
We pitched our scale a few metres away from the selling points and weighed the maize which people had just bought.
The buyers we engaged thought they were carrying maize ranging from 10 to 20 kilogrammes but after we weighed the staple grain they had bought, most of them were taking home almost half of what they paid for.
Maria Josaya and her relation from Adam Village, Traditional Authority Mlumbe, had set out to buy a total of 40kgs at Namadidi depot. They got 29 kilogrammes between them, according to our scale.
“The problem is the workers. They do not allow us to see whether we are getting what we paid for on the scale. They deliberately turn the scale to face them so that we don’t see the quantities. They do things very fast so that we don’t recognise their tricks,” lamented Josaya adding that she cannot afford buying maize from vendors.
She also said workers at the depot frequently change scales and that sometimes they use a manipulated non trade digital scale.
Another buyer, Janet Amadu, only got 10 kilogrammes, instead of the 20 kilogrammes she had intended.
Amadu said she had been suspicious with the quantities of the maize she has been buying from the depot and she once confronted the workers, without success.
“It is hard for some of us to come up with this money to buy maize to feed our families. We cannot afford the maize on private market,” she said.
Another buyer Thomas Kaponya of Ngochera village, who got 11 out of the intended 20kgs, said the workers hide behind the fact that rural depots are not closely monitored.
“We have been facing this for so long,” he said. “It’s just that most of us do not know where to complain about such ill-treatment.”
We confronted a sales clerk at the depot over the people’s complaints and he faulted the buyers instead.
“It is not our problem. The scale is visible to everyone but they choose not to look at it,” he said.
At Thondwe depot, Ernest Chikondi of Mkwapatira village was astonished when our scale showed him that he had carried 8kgs instead of the 10kgs he thought he had paid for.
“I have a big family to feed at home and the 10kgs is not even enough,” complained Chikondi while calling on authorities to ensure people are protected.
Christina Kagwa of Luna village, T/A Mpama in Chiradzulu had spent a night at Namadzi depot to buy 20kgs. She ended up getting 16kgs.
“I spent a night here for the sake of my eight-member family. I had sold kachasu to get this money and I cannot afford to buy the maize at a private market,” she said.
Rose Salimu of T/A Kedewere had paid to buy 20 kgs at Chiradzulu boma market. She ended up with 17 kgs.
We also found similar problems among buyers in some Admarc markets in Blantyre.
Director General for Malawi Bureau of Standards, Davlin Chokazinga, said his institution assizes Admarc scales at the start of every season. But he admitted some Admarc staff still found ways to defraud buyers.
“An officer far away from the head office can behave strangely. Some of the officers use non-trade scales that are cheap to rip off buyers. Some of them turn away the scale from the buyers so that they achieve their ill motives,” said Chokazinga.
In a recent statement, the Competitions and Fair Trade Commission (CFTC) admitted getting complaints of unfair trading practices by private traders as well as at Admarc markets.
According to the statement dated 11 February 2016, some of the practices included use of incorrect measures or weights with a view to deceive or mislead consumers, false representation regarding the weight of maize sold to consumers and charging excessive prices which are exploitative to consumers.
Charlotte Wezi Malonda, CFTC Executive Director, told Malawi News in an email response that the complaints necessitated her organisation’s market inspection exercise.
CFTC conducted the inspections in Mzimba, Nkhata Bay, Kasungu, Lilongwe, Dowa, Mchinji, Ntcheu, Balaka, Mangochi, Machinga, Zomba, Mwanza, Blantyre and Thyolo.
The organisation inspected over 100 selling points in these districts where it noted that there was a lot of maize in the hands of private traders.
The inspection established that most Admarc depots were receiving weekly supplies ranging from 100 to 300 bags of maize per week.
Admarc Chief Executive Officer, Foster Mlumbe, demanded the names of the markets we went to so that the institution can investigate.
“How can I know something I don’t have details on,” wondered Mlumbe, “Give me the name of the markets so that I can send a team to investigate, otherwise this is hearsay.”
But Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, Allan Chiyembekeza, said while the government is making sure that all Admarc depots are stocked with enough maize, authorities at Admarc should help government by ensuring that they check the behaviour of their employees.
Malawi is grappling with food shortage which has left close to three million people in need of food aid.
With many Malawians living on less than a dollar a day, not all can afford maize at a private market where it was selling between K260 and K300 per kilogramme.
These people have often relied on Admarc markets where the grain was selling at a subsidised price of K110 per kilogramme.
But there have been numerous reports of the depots going without stocks for days and where it is available, poor buyers are short-changed by vendors who connive with officials and buy the commodity in bulk to resell it on the parallel market at the exorbitant price.
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