By Thandie Chadzandiyani
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) has praised President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse Alliance government for allowing more players to come in for sugar production in the country.
The association has also expressed worrisome of high prices of sugar traded by Illovo Sugar Limited while neighboring countries offer lower cost.
CAMA observes that by giving licenses to many players will tame Illovo Sugar Limited monopoly and consumers abuses on the product.
Addressing the news conference on Tuesday, June 6, 2023 in Blantyre on impending proposed water tariff hike and overpriced sugar, CAMA’s Executive Director John Kapito said, “Illovo is abusing Malawians knowing that it is an only provider of the product and ministry of trade must investigate Illovo on the huge profit they are making yet their prices are still as high”.
On overpriced sugar, Kapito said, “of what use is a product if we cannot access it, Malawi is the only country that is sugar price was raised by about 50% and yet the government is still sleeping on the issue, it is possible to buy it at half the price now but only if the government acts on it.
“Illovo Sugar Limited should be under government supervision, their product price should be advised by the government not vice-versa, yes illovo has helped in creating jobs but they have to balance it by applying fair prices on its consumers but the company is simply abusing the market knowing that the ministry of trade is weak.”
When asked what government should do to help the consumers, “The ministry should open the licences to the market to import sugar as international price is way cheaper than what we are getting or mitigate the prices Illovo is infuriating on us”.
The consumers body is also against proposed water tariff expected to be gazetted over unreasonable percent .
This is despite numerous number of people connected to good water is still below current demand.
Kapito maintains that “Only 40% of water goes to consumers yet they are charged for a 100% price which proclaim that there is a price of 60% that is being heaped to the consumers by the water-board without being consumed by the consumers, the 60% is lost before even reaching the consumer yet we pay for it’’.
“Malawi is one of the poorest country yet we have the highest consuming water price, the failure of water-board to collect their money from government offices is putting the pressure on small consumers to meet the demand of water-board, which is making it impossible as we can see now how hard it is still for water-board to connect good water to every consumer out here”.
Kapito thus warned President Lazarus Chakwera Tonse government to be careful towards gazetting water tariff that imping on consumers.
“Government should be careful when gazetting this water tariff issue, the tariff we are accepting will be within 15 to 20% because we know that they need to continue giving us water and they need to keep running, anything above that will be abuse to us the consumers, with the issue of Cholera right now Malawi needs to maintain the clean water campaign and to achieve that Water-board will be held responsible.
“Water boards claim that the hike is for water connection repairs but why do people use stolen meters? This only shows that it’s the same water-board that reconnects them and vandalising never stops as people know that water-board will still use it without checking the legal of the product hence increasing corruption in the system, water-board should also check their internal systems that are weak not saying they need a huge raise on the tariff,” says Kapito.
Further Kapito stresses that water-board must make address the challenge where the government is using water free of charge creating a pressure on consumers.
“We are told the government agencies owes the water-board a lot yet they are still accessing the water, government offices should be treated the same as private consumers, give them prepaid meters so that they should buy the water not post pay where they are just using them without paying.
“Initially if good measures are not being implemented on the water-board tariff we are taking the government to court for judicial review,” he said.
