NEWS FROM MALAWI Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit MALAWI NEWS ONLINE/MALAWI NEWS ONLINE/MALAWI NEWS ONLINE Edition #62 21 April 1999 Subscribe to Malawi News Online A bi-monthly update of news from Malawi! MALAWI NEWS ONLINE is written by Malawian journalists living in Malawi and brings you the news from their point of view. It is assembled and edited by Africa News Network, part of South Africa Contact, the former anti-apartheid movement in Denmark. MALAWI NEWS ONLINE is one of our individual newsletters and together with those from Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Lesotho and Angola, provides up to date news through our established network of journalists in Southern Africa. These newsletters will be followed in the very near future by news updates from other countries in the region. MALAWI NEWS ONLINE is brought to you through a co-operation between Africa News Network, South Africa Contact and Inform, Denmark's leading alternative information network. ****************************** In this edition: 1) WORLD BANK CONCERNED ABOUT CORRUPTION 2) REGISTRATION IN A MESS 3) CONVICTS START DOING COMMUNITY SERVICE 4) PRISON FOOD WOES RAGE ON 5) MBC CHIEF DIES 6) TOBACCO PRICES BETTER BUT NOT GOOD 7) FLOODS HIT MALAWI 8) MALAWI ARMY IN PEACEKEEPING EXERCISE 9) MALAWI EXPECTS 800,000 TONNES MAIZE SURPLUS 10) PARLIAMENTARY NOMINATIONS GO AHEAD Stories: 1) WORLD BANK CONCERNED ABOUT CORRUPTION The World Bank has said it was concerned with the high level of corruption in government. The bank's Resident Representative Robert Liebenthal also urged the government to speed up the civil service reform programme began by the government sometime back. Liebenthal said the bank would help the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), the government's watchdog against corruption, in its fight against the vice. He did not specify areas in which corruption was rampant. ''We are in the process of discussing with the ACB ways in which we can support their work,'' he said, adding that Malawi ranks relatively high globally in terms of corruption and the situation needed prompt attention. He said although the bureau has recently brought up cases of prominent people, it lacks a proper data and research system which results in failure to accumulate sufficient evidence. On civil service reform, Liebenthal said there was need to speed up the process, adding that presently government was lagging behind on the implementation of expenditure control measures resulting in money meant for one use being diverted to another. 2) REGISTRATION IN A MESS Cracks widened in the Electoral Commission when a week ago some commissioners joined the opposition and non-governmental organisations in calling for a fresh start of the registration process claiming that the current exercise is marred by massive fraud and political manipulation. Chair of the commission's training committee, Monica Ngwembe, told a meeting of the national consultative meeting that registration was in a mess. ''We are not doing a good job. People are being ferried from one constituency to another to register. We know eligible voters are being denied the chance to register,'' she said. But commission chair Justice William Hanjahanja told another meeting of political parties and donors the same day described the registration as ''smooth''. While admitting flaws in the process which he attributed to problems in delivery of registration materials by foreign suppliers, he said the turn up to the registration centres was overwhelming, so much so that registration forms were running out. He added that the election calendar was on course and the commission was looking forward to free and fair elections. But another commissioner, Garnet Kamwambe, said there was no way the elections would be free and fair if held on May 25, unless the present mess was corrected. The split in the commission surfaced early this month when four commissioners openly challenged the commission's decision that MCP President Gwanda Chakuamba could not pick Aford President Chakufwa Chihana. 3) CONVICTS START DOING COMMUNITY SERVICE The judiciary in the country has started sentencing offenders to do community work instead of sending them to prison. The Mzuzu Magistrates Court, in north Malawi, became the first court to order a man to do community service on April 6. Gift , 20, who stole a welding machine belonging to his friend will serve 80 hours in community service work at the Mzuzu City Council or in default serve a two-month prison term with hard labour. Community service is a new concept in Malawi and is viewed by authorities as one way of reducing congestion in the country's prisons which are also saddled with food shortages due to poor funding from government. 4) PRISON FOOD WOES RAGE ON Food shortages which since January have hit the country's prisons are reported to be worsening , forcing authorities to urge inmates to solicit meals from outside. Father Piergiorgio Gamba, who heads the Prisons Inspectorate Committee said on April 6, his committee visited several prisons in March and found prisoners starving. ''The food shortage in the prisons is getting worse, and prisons are overcrowded,'' said Gamba adding that government was failing to contain the situation. ''The prisons have turned into a kind of ''self boarding'' institutions since the prisoners are catering for their own needs,'' he said, adding that there was no medication for those who fall sick and that there were all kinds of disease outbreaks. The British High Commission started a feeding programme in prisons in March this year whereby it is giving the prisons half of their food requirements. The feeding exercise will last up to June. 5) MBC CHIEF DIES Malawi Broadcasting Corporation Director General Sam Gunde died on April 7 after a long battle with diabetes. He was 47. Gunde joined MBC in 1975 as an announcer. He later studied law at the University of Malawi's Chancelor College and rejoined the national broadcaster in 1989. He obtained a Masters degree in Public Administration in 1994. He was appointed Director General in 1997 after serving in an acting position for one year. His tenure of duty at MBC saw the establishment of a second channel in 1998. 6) TOBACCO PRICES BETTER BUT NOT GOOD Tobacco prices this year will be slightly higher than last year's due to the lower volumes produced this year. However, Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) General Manager Godfrey Chapola said the five cents increase per kilogramme for the country's ''green gold'' could not be described as good. Chapola said TCC barley and northern division dark fired tobacco would fetch slightly better prices than in 19988 while prices for flue cured tobacco would remain the same. Last year barley was pegged at US$1.30 per kg while flue cured was at US$1.41 per kg and dark fired was sold at US$1.91 per kg. Chapola said barley would drop by 21 percent from 114 million kg last year to 90 million kg this year. Flue cured is estimated at 13 million kg from 13.8 million kg last year while dark fired is estimated at 6.5 million kg. Last year, the low tobacco prices resulted in a deficit of K2 billion (US$80 million). This and a couple of other reasons set the Kwacha tumbling by over 50 percent. 7). FLOODS HIT MALAWI Ten thousand people in nine districts have been affected by floods which have also killed one person since December last year. Coordinator for Relief and Rehabilitation Willie Gidala said floods have hit Chikwawa, Zomba, Phalombe and Machinga in the south, Nkhotakota, Mchinji and Salima in the central region and Karonga and Nkhata Bay in the north. He could not however estimate the extent of damage which varies from place to place but said in most areas floods have displaced people, damaged crops and killed their livestock. The floods have also destroyed Dwambazi bridge on the lakeshore road. The bridge links the North to the rest of the country. He said those affected have so far been assisted with food and non- food items like flour, beans, salt, blankets, pails, plates and roofing materials. He could not, however, quantify the assistance. Gidala said Phalombe was the worse affected where one person died. 8) MALAWI ARMY IN PEACEKEEPING EXERCISE The Malawi Army has sent 150 soldiers to join their colleagues from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region in a peace keeping exercise aimed at enhancing and testing defence forces at peace keeping operations in the region. Code named ''Blue Crane'', the exercise, held in Cape Province in South Africa until April 29, is a follow up to the Blue Hungwe held in June 1997 in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. Army Commander Lt. Col. McLlyod Chidzalo said the exercise was necessary because in the present scenario where there is no East-West Bloc rivalry the nations' focus was largely on peace keeping. ''Primarily defence forces focus their activities on territorial integrity. Yet more often than not there are intra-state wars as opposed to inter-state conflicts,' said Chidzalo. Defence forces from all SADC countries except the Democratic Republic of Congo are represented at the exercise sponsored by Canada, Belgium, India, United Kingdom, United States, France and Germany. 9) MALAWI EXPECTS 800,000 TONNES MAIZE SURPLUS Malawi expects to harvest 2.5 million metric tonnes of maize this year, 800,000 metric tonnes above the national grain requirement. Agriculture officials say the country's 9.8 million people require about 1.7 million metric tonnes of maize annually. Last year, the country imported 100,000 metric tonnes, 12,000 metric tonnes less than the 1997 maize imports to meet the shortfall. Government last year launched a Starter Pack Scheme sponsored by donors in which free maize seed and fertilizer were distributed to 2.3 million smallholder farmers countrywide. It is, however, feared that the continuing rains countrywide would seriously reduce maize harvests as the crop is ready for harvesting especially in the southern and central regions of the country. 10) PARLIAMENTARY NOMINATIONS GO AHEAD Receiving of nomination papers for parliamentary candidates got off to a good start on April 12 barely 48 hours after the opposition were granted an injunction restraining the Electoral Commission from going ahead with the two-day exercise. The opposition Malawi Congress Party asked the High Court to declare that the voter registration which started on March 16 was fraught with irregularities which would not lead to free and fair elections. The opposition also wanted the voter registration to be suspended so that it starts afresh. Justice Atanazio Tembo granted the injunction on April 9. The injunction was to have been valid until on April 18 when the court was to hear the case. However, the High Court dissolved the injunction on April 11 after commission lawyers applied for relief of the issues in the opposition's affidavit. The court said the opposition had not followed the right channel in applying for the injunction. ****************************** MALAWI NEWS ONLINE A bi-monthly update of news from Malawi! If you would like to receive more information about MALAWI NEWS ONLINE, or about our other newsletters or upcoming newsletters, please send an e-mail to: AfricaNN@inform-bbs.dk We can also be contacted by fax and by phone at: Fax: + 45 35 35 43 32 Phone:+ 45 35 35 96 32 Letters to the editor can be sent to: editor@inform-bbs.dk (Mary Tingay) If you know of anyone else who might be interested in subscribing to MALAWI NEWS ONLINE, please let us know and tell them about us! 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