The government has yet to make clear where the foreign currency is going to come from to pay Malawi for the maize imports.
Agriculture has been disrupted by the seizure of most commercial farms for redistribution to landless black farmers. As a result, the export earnings from a country once seen as the breadbasket of Southern Africa have evaporated.
The Malawi deal, intended to deliver 400,000 tons, or 25 percent of Zimbabwe’s maize needs, is also allowing Malawians access to some of the farmland here, in theory intended for the landless.
Malawi President Bingu wa-Mutharika already owns a farm in Zimbabwe, with his late wife, Ethel, who was a Zimbabwean, owning several other properties here.
The Malawian exports to Zimbabwe have sparked a furore in Lilongwe, with the opposition there accusing their government of giving away maize at the expense of 1 million Malawians facing hunger this year. – Chief reporter Â
Post published in: News