Malawi’s leaf smugglers threatened with arrest

Malawi’s Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) has warned cross border traders that they will be arrested if they are found to be smuggling leaf tobacco out of the country, according to a Star Africa story.

Traders are said to have been smuggling leaf tobacco to Zambia and Mozambique because the prices that are offered on the auction floors in Malawi are low compared to those in neighboring countries.

TCC CEO Bruce Munthali said on Tuesday that smuggling tobacco would cripple the nation economically because it depended on tobacco to be a major earner of foreign exchange.

“There are reports that some unscrupulous business people are smuggling the product to neighboring countries; therefore we have issued out a stern warning stressing that once caught they will face the law,” he said.

Those doing the smuggling might be regarded as unscrupulous business people but tobacco farmers in Malawi are possibly desperate to increase their incomes.

This was suggested by a report earlier this week that the government of Malawi had licensed three leaf dealers from China, Egypt and South Africa to participate in the 2015 marketing season.

The move was aimed at increasing competition and came after an Anadolu Agency story in October had said that tobacco growers felt they were between a rock and a hard place: falling prices on the one hand and government apathy on the other.

One grower quoted in the story said that buyers were not giving farmers a fair deal; they were taking away the tobacco at a price of their own choosing.

Another said that he was paid an average of £0.80 per kg for his tobacco, which was not enough to repay the loans he took out to buy the agricultural inputs he needed.