Jump to full article: Africa News (nl), 2009-08-07
Author: FRAZER POTANI
Intro: tobacco dates to 1800s according to a Guide to Blantyre published by Malawi 's Department of Tourism in the 1980s.
No wonder that since attaining independence from Britain in 1964, Malawi's economy still depends on the leaf.
However, while Malawian estate owners and international multinational tobacco firms have been reaping from tobacco, ordinary Malawian estate workers have not been benefiting, Frazer Potani reports from Malawi.
Ganizani Benjala cannot remember his age, however, recalls that for 48 years has been doubling as a tobacco tenant and watchman at Zanzi Estate in Mitundu, Lilongwe.
But despite working in the two jobs for this long period what Benjala has is a rusty bicycle bought 12 years ago. . . .
He said every tobacco sales season his benefits are eaten away by inflated hefty monetary deductions including food and medical costs by the estate's management.
However, Zanzi Estate Manager Naphtali Samson Banda said management gives food accessibility to tenants a priority.
"Our estate 226 hectares and we have 6 tenants, 60 direct laborers who are on monthly pay roll and 12 indirect labour working as temporary workers. To make sure that our tenants are food secure, apart from providing them with food, each tenant was allocated a piece of land for growing tobacco and maize," said Banda.
He further disclosed that his estate allocates a bigger area for growing maize for food than the land for growing tobacco to its tenants.
"We can not produce more high quality tobacco when our tenants and workers in general have no food," he said.
. . .
Tobacco Tenants and Allied Workers Union of Malawi (TOTAWUM) Secretary General for the central region of Malawi, Edson Gideon said his organization was receiving many complaints from tobacco tenants. . . .
The Centre For Social Concern (CFSC) in Lilongwe however, said its research reveals that despite that tobacco production is associated with economic development, employment provision, and contributes over 70 per cent of Malawi's foreign exchange growers are becoming poorer.
It says the powerful forces behind Malawi's tobacco dependent economy are US subsidiaries Limbe Leaf, Stancom and Dimon which together purchase over 95 percent of the tobacco crop and sell it to global cigarettes firms like Phillip Morris and British American Tobacco.
It further says results reveal that the prices of tobacco prevailing on the auction floors have been generally declining over the last few years.
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