Smallholder sugarcane farmers from Dwangwa in Nkhotakota have called upon the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism to revoke the import permit on sugarcane saying the move will leave many cane farmers helpless as they will be forced out of business.
\nThis comes amid the ministry\u2019s decision to start granting a licence to import of 20,000 metric tonnes of sugar into Malawi.
\nSugarcane Growers Association of Malawi (Sugam) Chairperson Frighton Njolomole petitioned Parliament yesterday saying government should support the smallholder sector.
\nAccording to the association, if the 20,000 tonnes of sugar is allowed into the country, there will be a reduction of their income by approximately K1.6 billion.
\nNjolomole said the association, which has a membership of 5,000 growers, supplied cane worth K11.1 billion in the year ended March 31 2017 from Dwangwa and Nchalo out-growers.
\nHe said through withholding taxes, the association contributed K332 million and K1.8 billion in Value Added Tax (VAT); as such, the decision by the Ministry of Trade will not only affect their finances but also reduce the contribution the growers make to government.
\nAccording to Njolomole, by importing sugar, the government is contradicting itself on the \u2018buy Malawi goods\u2019 campaign.
\n\u201cThis will impact on our ability to support and provide for our families, reduce employment as it will cut back on the number of people we need in the value chain. Government should enhance a \u2018buy Malawi\u2019 campaign by stopping issuing this licence of importation of sugar,\u201d he said.
\nMinistry of Trade spokesperson Wiskes Mkombezi said he believes the group does not have adequate information on the matter.
\nMeanwhile, the association delivered a petition to Parliament calling on the Members of Parliament to intervene in the decision.
\nThe petition was delivered to the Agriculture Committee of Parliament and was received by the committee\u2019s Chairperson Joseph Chidanti-Malunga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Smallholder sugarcane farmers from Dwangwa in Nkhotakota have called upon the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism to revoke the import permit on sugarcane saying the move will leave many cane farmers helpless as they will be forced out of business. This comes amid the ministry\u2019s decision to start granting a licence to import of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58886","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\/58886","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=58886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58891,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58886\/revisions\/58891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}