{"id":44302,"date":"2017-04-12T10:03:29","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T08:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=44302"},"modified":"2017-04-12T10:03:32","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T08:03:32","slug":"dpp-takes-politics-to-tobacco-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2017\/04\/12\/dpp-takes-politics-to-tobacco-market\/","title":{"rendered":"DPP takes politics to tobacco market"},"content":{"rendered":"

D<\/strong>emocratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary General, Grelzedar Jeffrey, Tuesday turned the 2017 tobacco marketing season launch into a political circus.<\/p>\n

Her inclusion on the list of speakers at the function raised eyebrows because the event is traditionally insulated from political rhetoric as it is the force behind Malawi\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

The normal speakers\u2019 list includes Auction Floors managers, AHL Group, Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) chairperson, Minister of Agriculture and the President.<\/p>\n

But Jeffrey seized the moment to relentlessly attack people she feels blame President Peter Mutharika and the DPP government for failing to develop the country.<\/p>\n

She invited the critics to join mainstream politics where, according to her, the DPP would defeat them.<\/p>\n

Her remarks were a disingenuous reference to the Public Affairs Committee (Pac) which last Thursday issued a scathing attack on the DPP for failing Malawians.<\/p>\n

On arrival in Lilongwe on Monday from Blantyre, Mutharika similarly dared Pac to form a political party and stop hiding behind religion in its attacks on him.<\/p>\n

Continuing with the theme, Jeffrey said the DPP has developed the country and would continue ruling the country until 2084.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these parties are out of fashion and it is only the DPP that is in fashion,\u201d Jeffrey said.<\/p>\n

The 2017 marketing season was launched with the same old song of low prices dominating the discourse.<\/p>\n

Farmers The Daily Times <\/em>spoke to as Mutharika made a symbolic tour of Kanengo Auction Floors said the first day minimum and maximum prices of about $0.80 and $1.50 respectively were too little for their toiling.<\/p>\n

This is similar to the opening prices the market registered last year before the prices then tumbled to $0.50.<\/p>\n

The development did not go down well with the farmers who called on Mutharika to issue a directive for the buyers to offer a minimum price of $1.<\/p>\n

They claimed that the buyers are taking advantage of their plight to offer such low prices to which the government is deliberately giving a blind eye.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Mutharika said he was aware that there would be less tobacco than what the market is demanding and he expects better prices.<\/p>\n

An estimated 124,000 metric tonnes has been produced against the market demand of 150,000 metric tonnes. The deficit of about 26,000 metric tonnes has raised hopes for better prices.<\/p>\n

AHL Group Chairperson, Margaret Roka Mauwa, hinted that the prices may pick up due to the low supply.<\/p>\n

She highlighted that similar market forces were the reason the prices fell to $0.50 last year.<\/p>\n

She said the last tobacco season was very disappointing as most farmers failed to redeem input costs, service providers experienced high marketing costs and for the first time in history, the marketing season closed in January after selling 195,000 metric tonnes of tobacco.<\/p>\n

Mutharika was equally upbeat, saying his expectation is that the market prices would be based on market forces of supply and demand and they would be different from one buyer to another.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust like in the previous seasons, the government has set minimum prices for the different crops including tobacco. This is to ensure that the farmer gets a fair reward for his labour. As for tobacco, each grade has a minimum price.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am reliably informed that these prices have been agreed upon with you tobacco buyers and other stakeholders through a series of discussions at different levels. Please treat these as minimum, not what you must always pay,\u201d Mutharika said.<\/p>\n

He said the government would not tolerate tobacco buyers to collude and offer unreasonably low prices to growers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be monitoring the selling floors closely to ensure that your so called market prices are more than the protected ones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Turning to farmers, Mutharika said they should avoid compromising their tobacco quality and desist from disrupting sales every time they encounter a problem or are dissatisfied with the prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that the industry has structures and systems, spearheaded by the Tobacco Control Commission, for resolving any disagreements and conflicts. Make full use of these structures and systems. I want a peaceful tobacco selling season this year,\u201d Mutharika said.<\/p>\n

He said the expectations are that there will be both the contract and auction marketing systems and tobacco farmers have already chosen which system they will be patronising this marketing season.<\/p>\n

Mutharika said as a long term measure, farmers should diversify with tobacco and not away from tobacco.<\/p>\n

He further called on the buyers to offer better prices in order to improve the lives of the farmers and decried favouritism on prices offered to contract farmers than those on the auction market.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the matter, Malawi Economic Justice Network Executive Director, Dalitso Kubalasa, emphasised that the buyers should take it upon themselves to uplift the lives of the farmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary General, Grelzedar Jeffrey, Tuesday turned the 2017 tobacco marketing season launch into a political circus. Her inclusion on the list of speakers at the function raised eyebrows because the event is traditionally insulated from political rhetoric as it is the force behind Malawi\u2019s economy. The normal speakers\u2019 list includes Auction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44302","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\/44302","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=44302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44310,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44302\/revisions\/44310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}