Malawi, Israel to sign labour deal Thursday
Malawi and Israel are this Thursday scheduled to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the labour export deal between the two countries, The Nation has established.
Malawi Government officials are tight-lipped on this new development, but information The Nation has gathered indicates that three Cabinet ministers left Malawi for Israel yesterday for the signing ceremony.
The trio comprises Minister of Foreign Affairs Nancy Tembo, Minister of Labour Agnes NyaLonje and Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu. The delegation also includes other technical officials.
Kunkuyu did not respond to our WhatsApp message sent last week and when called to confirm yesterday, he declined to do so.
But in a written response, Kenya-based Israeli Ambassador Micheal Lotem confirmed about the visit and the signing ceremony.
He, however, promised to revert to The Nation with more information as he was engaged with other duties in Kampala, Uganda.
Said Lotem: “Indeed, there is a visit and we will sign. Will get back to you later.”
Last month, Lotem said Israel had limited to 2 500 the number of Malawians who can be recruited under the deal to work in farms when an MoU is signed.
Under the new arrangement, the contract period for new Malawian workers, according to Lotem, was also reduced from five to two years.
In an earlier interview, the envoy justified this decision, saying the MoU should be understood as a pilot project and “therefore, only a limited number of jobs can be offered and for a limited time [two years in Israel] as the two governments work on the bilateral labour agreement”.
He said for the labour agreement to be concluded, it may take more than a year or two due to several processes, including the need for ratification.
It is not clear if this has changed in the MoU to be signed this Thursday.
During a meeting in Jerusalem earlier this year, Israeli Minister of Economy Nir Barakt told the Malawi delegation that it needed to think about exporting 100 000 workers across sectors.
In his 2024/25 National Budget statement presented to the National Assembly in February, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda cited the labour export deal with Israel as one of the six signals that the country’s economy was recovering. n
—Additional reporting by JACOB NANKHONYA, Staff Writer
