Row over Malawi maize export to Zimbabwe

Opposition leaders in Malawi Sunday accused the government of President Bingu wa Mutharika of breaking international trade rules by paying for maize it is exporting to Zimbabwe. But government has since described the allegations as "baseless and lacking on facts".

"(The) Government has take US$300 million from the Reserve Bank of Malawi to pay the National Food Reserve Authority for the maize it is exporting to Zimbabwe," said opposition Malawi Democratic Party (MDP) president Kamlepo Kalua while addressing a public rally alongside former president Bakili Muluzi.

Muluzi, who picked Mutharika as his successor following the end of his official two five-year terms in 2004, is going around the country addressing political allies and drumming up support for his bid for a return to office during the scheduled 2009 presidential election.

Kalua said President Mutharika had "bull-dozed" the central bank into making the "suspicious" transaction. He claimed the president flouted Malawi's fiscal regulations by forcing the central bank to make the payment because Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is "his friend" and that Malawi's First Lady, Ethel Mutharika, is a Zimbabwean. The Mutharikas also run a farm in Zimbabwe.

But the Mutharika administration has dismissed the allegations as "a fabrication and untrue". Deputy Agriculture and Food Security Minister Bintony Kutsaira told PANA Sunday no money was taken from the Reserve Bank of Malawi for the transaction.

"The deal was a normal international trade deal signed between Malawi and Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwean Central Bank will pay Malawi some US$120 million for the maize," he said.

Kutsaira said in fact the Zimbabwe Central Bank has already made an initial US$6 million payment for "logistics". "As you know, Malawi recorded a surplus in maize (yields) this year and some of the maize has to be sold out to some countries in the region that recorded deficits, such as Zimbabwe," he said. "If we do not sell our maize surplus it will be destroyed and prices on the market will be depressed."

Malawi is currently discussing with the governments of the kingdom of Swaziland and Lesotho- which also had food deficits- for further maize exports, he added. Malawi needs about 2 million metric tonnes of the staple food, maize, to feed its population of 12 million people. But, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the southern African country recorded a surplus of about 1 million metric tonnes.

Kutsaira said Malawi expects to export some 400,000 metric tonnes of maize to Zimbabwe where at least a quarter of the population, according to the World Food Programme, is "leaning towards a serious food shortage".

Some 30,000 metric tonnes of maize has already been sent to Zimbabwe, according to the deputy minister.