Malawi Government has suspended implementation of some plantation fees, royalties and prices in the Forestry Act gazetted in June this year after realising that some figures were wrongly computed.
In the notice published on June 14 2024, government raised concession unit price for products per cubic metre from $10 (about K17 510 to $100 (K175 100) while concession fees (land rent) was raised from $15 (about K26 000) to $700 (about K1.1 million) per hectare (ha) per annum.
Further, export and import licence fees for local companies had been raised to K700 000 from K75 000 previously, which raised concerns among concessionaires who argued the fees were exorbitant.
But Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change Principal Secretary Yusuf Nkungula, in an interview last week, said they have written the concessionaires about the suspension of the fees until further notice.
However, a letter we have seen to the concessionaires says the rest of the revised figures remain unchanged while the above have been suspended until they are rectified.
Reads the letter in part: “Meanwhile, the minister has decided to suspend implementation of the erroneous parts of the Forest (Amendment) Rules, until the errors are rectified and revised Rules published under the gazette.
“The ministry would reiterate that all the other fees and royalties rates remain as reflected in the Gazette Supplement of 14th June 2024, and should be implemented as such.”
Raiply Malawi Limited public relations officer Dalitso Chimwala said on Thursday the Department of Forestry needs to engage individual concessionaires before revising and raising the fees as per the Concession Agreements.
“Raising the fees by in some cases over 1 000 percent will make Malawian exports non-competitive on the international market.
“The increase should not have been computed and backdated to 10 years, but done in phases,” he said.
But Nkungula said government used a formula to align with the country’s economic trends, having not raised the fees for the past 14 years.
