Police, Forestry corner officers over charcoal story

It has emerged that 36 Malawi Police Service officers face disciplinary action while two Department of Forestry senior officers have been interdicted following an undercover investigation our sister newspaper, Weekend Nation, published on January 20 2021.

National Police deputy spokesperson Harry Namwaza said in an interview that the 36 officers were expected to appear before the National Police Disciplinary Committee to answer the charge of neglect of duty.

“This is not a small charge because one can lose his or her job if found guilty,” he said.

But Namwaza refused to disclose the identities of the 36 officers, saying their names were not for media consumption.

He did not indicate when the 36 police officers will appear before the National Police Disciplinary Committee.

Besides the Police, the award-winning story also detailed how Department of Forestry officials help smugglers to transport charcoal to Blantyre.

Deputy director of Forestry responsible for law enforcement, Teddie Kamoto, said they have interdicted two senior officers pending disciplinary proceedings based on the evidence published by Weekend Nation.

“These two suspects are from our Blantyre office and we interdicted them immediately. We reported the matter to Anti-Corruption Bureau [ACB] and we are waiting to be updated by them on what has been done,” he said. “I need also to indicate that after you published that story, we conducted our investigation and we verified the information that they were involved.”

In the nine-month investigation, Weekend Nation captured on camera some police officers stationed between Zalewa Road Block and Kameza Roundabout in Blantyre receiving bribes to allow illegal charcoal transporters smuggle the commodity from Neno District to at least nine markets in the commercial city.  

In the aftermath of the story, Police conducted investigations in the Southern Region where they purportedly instituted an undercover operation and engaged the journalist who did the story as part of their probe.

Our sources in the Police confided that during the police investigation, it was established that some off-duty officers were illegally manning roadblocks and carrying out patrols without registering their names in the log book.

“Even some who were on duty, their names were missing if indeed they reported for duties during our investigation which is also a problem,” said one of the sources.

ACB spokesperson Egrita Ndala requested for more time to give us an update on the two interdicted forestry officials who have been interdicted.

Charcoal production and marketing are wiping out at least 30 000 hectares of forest cover in Malawi every year.

Malawi’s position as one of the least electrified countries globally at just 11 percent nationally has pushed charcoal to become the primary source of fuel for 54 percent of urban households.

Progress on alternative sources of energy: 

Charcoal production and marketing are wiping out at least 30 000 hectares of forest cover in Malawi every year. 

Malawi’s position as one of the least electrified countries globally at just 11 percent nationally—with 42 percent of the urban people having access and just four percent of rural dwellers connected—has pushed charcoal to become the primary source of fuel for 54 percent of urban households. 

Across rural Malawi, households continue to rely almost exclusively on firewood. Meanwhile, alternative cooking and heating fuels remain underdeveloped, with less than one percent of Malawian households using any alternative to firewood, charcoal or electricity for cooking and heating. 

But what is government doing to make sure that Malawians have alternative sources of energy? Kamoto says government has come up with a number of alternatives but what is remaining is the accessibility of those alternatives. 

He said one thing they have considered is the sustainable charcoal where his department has issued eight licenses to companies and organisations that are producing sustainable charcoal. 

These companies are only in four districts—two in Mzuzu, four in Lilongwe, one in Chikwawa and one in Mchinji. Kamoto agreed that this is not enough to serve a country of about 18 million population. 

“We are trying to issue more licenses. Our plan is to at least issue two licenses per each district,” he said. 

He said the process to get a license is simple.

“If you think you have trees, then you can make an application so that we advise you on how best you can do it. The process to award an applicant a license does not take us more than a month,” he said.

Kamoto said a second alternative is to come up with wooden briquettes charcoal pellets which are being produced by Raiply.  

“We have also issued licenses to three people who are producing. We have mobilised people in Area 25, Kawale and other areas who are forming groups. We are still trying to come up with better working arrangement,” he said. 

Kamoto said he strongly believes that a solution should be gas but the problem is availability and also not reliability.