On tobacco, Dossi and ravaging water
Oh boy! There has been just a lot, as usual, happening in this lizard shaped land we call Malawi.
As I write, a picture is doing rounds that a tobacco farmer has sold tobacco at $4.40 per kilogramme at the Kanengo auction floors. That is the highest so far since President Lazarus Chakwera opened the tobacco market on Monday at Chinkhoma in Kasungu where the highest bidder got it at $3.01.
Before one starts saying the tobacco farmers must be really happy, one must be quick to observe that the prices are very good during the opening days but tend to drop as the market progresses. This leaves a lot of speculation.
On the other hand, it is a norm that the leaf that gets the best prices is that from farmers who are on contract with buyers. This is so because the farmers are furnished with inputs on loan, given the best of extension services and how to avoid non-tobacco related materials. Obviously, such a crop will fetch a better price, but what does the farmer take back home after the buyers make their subtractions agreed in the contract? Who will save the Namwera farmer who is not on contract.
At the end of the day, it is also high time we started thinking heavily on how to avoid exporting tobacco raw as it not only externalizes material that could well have fetched higher prices were it processed, while at the same time employing many others.
As I write, Dear Diary, there is a dark cloud hovering above our heads. Of course, the meteorology department has predicted that there would be heavy rains in the Southern Region which could cause flash floods. We will talk about that later, but the roof has fallen over our roofs this morning with the passage of Moses Dossi, one time Chikwawa West parliamentarian and revered sports commentator.
A former minister of sports, Dossi, I daresay, for me is one of those people who show the world that a short man is not a boy. Everyone knows his football commentary as the Man on the Touchline. Certainly, he remains one of the names that come to mind when we talk about football commentary in Malawi.
The football exploits are well documented in his 1992 book, Football in Malawi: A Way of Life. And on 17 December 2005, he amazed everyone when he dared the cold at Hyde Park in London where he walked about 16 kilometres to raise funds in an Oxfam campaign against the hunger that hit the country.
As a politician, Dossi had his own ways of doing things. When Bakili Muluzi handpicked Bingu wa Mutharika to be the United Democratic Front candidate in the 2004 elections, Harry Thomson, Aleke Banda and Justin Malewezi, who contested against Mutharika resigned from the party when the executive unilaterally chose Bingu in an orchestrated poll. It was only Moses Dossi who stood against Bingu at the UDF convention!
Apart from setting up his own Free Kick magazine, Dossi was a businessman who ran superettes in Blantyre at a time Lingford Phekani was running the Kanjedza and Chitawira superettes. This was at a time supermarkets were dominated by PTC and Kandodo which monopolized the market during the one party state.
May the man from Chapananga rest in peace.
Coming back to the dark cloud threatening to drop heavy rains, it is with sadness that it comes at a time several lakeshore districts have been hit by swelling water, leading to damage to property in the mainly tourism spots.
In Chikwawa, 1 683 households have been misplaced after the Nyakamba river swelled due to heavy rains.
The National Water Resources Authority (NWRA) has put its foot down; it can’t raise the volume of water passing through the Kamuzu Barrage at Liwonde in Machinga for fear of damaging hydro-electricity machinery down the course of the Shire. It says it extended from 600 cubic metres per second to 957 cubic centimeters to lower the lake.
The Multiconsult Group, which constructed the barrage says that is just 40 percent of the maximum the barrage can let out since in a second it could go up to 1 600 ccm.
Now, why can’t these two sides, with the powers that be come together and strike a balance that people in Mangochi should not suffer, while at the same time Electricity Generation Company equipment remains safe. For that matter, can’t that balance also consider the people of the Lower Shire who may suffer with flooding if there is more water flowing down there?
While we are at it , the argument by NWRA spokesperson Masoz i Kasambara that some of the buildings now in the water were built in areas that were protected needs to be taken deeply. Madzi saiwala khwawa
While we are at it, the argument by NWRA spokesperson Masozi Kasambara that some of the buildings now in the water were built in areas that were protected needs to be taken deeply. Madzi saiwala khwaw
