The government\u2019s continued subjection of milk to value added tax (VAT) at 16.5 percent smacks of contradiction of the highest order, and the sooner the authorities chose one policy direction on the matter, the better.<\/p>\n
Capital Hill cannot be preaching the gospel of fighting malnutrition and stunted growth in one breathe while in the other, denying the poor masses the very readily available and cheap source of proteins.<\/p>\n
Recent reports indicate that nearly 50 percent of under-five children in Malawi are affected by stunted growth that is largely caused by a lack of micronutrients, which slow down growth and irreversible cognitive development.<\/p>\n
It is common knowledge that stunted growth and indeed, malnutrition, is so high among the rural masses.<\/p>\n
However, in most cases, such poor people supplement their diet with milk that is usually cheap and easily accessible.<\/p>\n
In short, if the masses were encouraged to embark on dairy farming so as to increase milk availability for the poor, chances are that problems of stunted growth would ease down.<\/p>\n
However, while fighting stunted growth is the government\u2019s agenda, the authorities put spanners in their own efforts through the VAT that is subjected on milk.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the Malawi Milk Producers Association has a point when it calls on the government to remove such a tax which has caused the price of milk to rise by 45 percent.<\/p>\n
The Director of Revenue Policy in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Crispin Kulemeka\u2019s remarks that VAT is deducted on all goods that are for consumption and that milk is a good candidate for VAT pose another tale of contradiction for the government.<\/p>\n
For argument\u2019s sake, why do the same authorities apply tax on newsprint which is a raw material for the production of newspapers and notebooks for school children? Is there anyone who imports newsprint for sale as an end product?<\/p>\n
The government has a balancing act to make here. In any case, you cannot expect to transform the country from a trading into a manufacturing nation when the very same factor of production (labour) is malnourished.<\/p>\n
Milk cannot and should not be subjected to VAT for this is not only logically wrong but also morally suicidal on the part of the government. Capital Hill must choose one thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government\u2019s continued subjection of milk to value added tax (VAT) at 16.5 percent smacks of contradiction of the highest order, and the sooner the authorities chose one policy direction on the matter, the better. Capital Hill cannot be preaching the gospel of fighting malnutrition and stunted growth in one breathe while in the other, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44167,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164\/revisions\/44167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}