Off the Shelf

The full story about the prolonged dry spell

There is ample reason for Malawians to fear for the worst. Hunger due to a prolonged dry spell and fall army worms are expected to reduce maize harvests this year. This is only January and the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development has warned that the long dry spell and fall armyworms have already decimated 12 percent of the country’s 1.7 million hectares of maize. We have no idea what the next two to three months when food harvests will be ascertained will bring.

The writing on the wall is that the reduced maize harvest threatens the country’s five to six percent economic growth trajectory.  This is indeed bad news for Malawi which is just smarting from a two-year drought and flood devastation in 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 which left about 6.7 million souls foodless.

Government is, however, aware of the disaster before it. This is if President Peter Mutharika’s statement at a rally in Lunzu in Blantyre this week is anything to go by. Mutharika allayed fears about hunger and starvation as a result of the dry spell and fall armyworms and said government has enough stocks of maize for national consumption in 2018. Well, this is fine. But as with most political stores it is not the full story. A prolonged dry spell means less water flowing into Lake Malawi and the Shire River where 99 percent of the country’s hydro electric power is produced. Some climate change pundits have been saying that Malawi needs five years of adequate rains for Lake Malawi and the Shire River to resume their normal flow of water.  But it is not only adequate rains that Malawi needs. There is also need to intensify afforestation programmes to arrest run off.

The low rainfall the country is receiving this year also certainly means a continuation of the energy crisis. Some will say government has procured diesel powered generators which should shore up power production. While that may be true this will come at a cost. Some energy experts have been saying you cannot run a country on generators and expect the economy to grow. It however remains for the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mara) to tell the nation how many Malawians will afford the costly electricity. All this does not look good for the country which is holding Presidential and Parliamentary Tripartite Elections in 15 months.

The tendency will be for government to subsidise power consumption so that the voters do not feel very hurt in an election year. This means diverting resources meant for other sectors such as health, education and infrastructure development. The elections will also need a lot of resources.

All this boils down to what it is government is doing now to expedite the power interconnection project which is long overdue. This is more urgent now seeing that the private power producers programme is not bearing fruit and that other power producing projects such as the Kammwamba Coal Power Plant are taking forever to see the light of the day. It also makes it more imperative now that a lot of attention should be focused on establishing solar projects across the country. Government would promote this sector by waiving or reducing duty on imported solar materials.

The bad news about poor rainfall is also likely to affect water supply in the country. While 2017 has by and large been good for water boards, consumers should this year also brace for dry taps for the greater part of 2018 and beyond. Which is the reason there should be more action and less talking on tapping water from Mulanje Mountain for Blantyre and its surrounding districts and Diamphwe for Lilongwe.

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