Mining & Trade News

The Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) says there is need for cooking oil producing companies to utilize locally produced crops as raw materials in order to reduce their cost of production which will translate to the reduction of the skyrocketing price for cooking oil.
The Association says in a Press Statement that it is shocked with continued importation of already refined cooking oil and cooking oil raw materials from other countries despite the country producing enough oil crops to supply the local companies.
In the statement, CAMA condemns what it describes as persistent blackmailing by the Edible Cooking Oil Producers in the country who are seeking unnecessary attention and sympathy from consumers and Government.
The statement explains that the Cooking Oil Refining Industry has for so long preferred to import crude oil from the Eastern countries such as Malaysia, India and others, at higher prices compared to local raw materials grown by local farmers.
CAMA states: “Malawian farmers produce a lot of soya, groundnuts and sunflower used in the production of edible cooking oil but throughout the years our farmers that grow these raw materials have failed to find markets for their produce because the local cooking oil companies opted to buy crude oil from their own countries of origin.”
“Throughout the past years, Malawi was producing its own cooking oil using its own raw materials, we all recall Uniliver or Lever Brothers used to produce COVO and Kazinga with linkages to our local farmers.”
“These were superior products produced locally and you may recall that the vernacular Chichewa word for cooking oil was ‘Mafuta a Mtedza’ meaning it is cooking oil produced from groundnuts. The full name acronym for COVO was Cooking Vegetable Oil-also from local agricultural raw materials.”
CAMA has also expressed shock that the Malawi Government is allowing an Association of Cooking Oil Producers to import all required raw materials from their countries of origin and sideline local farmers’ access to markets.
The Association also says it is worrisome to see the local cooking oil refiners demanding a number of tax incentives from the Government from a product that has no added value to Malawians especially consumers and farmers.
CAMA says it is currently lobbying with Malawi Government to empower local Malawians and link them with local farmers to start producing local cooking oil.
It says: “There is no magic science in the production of cooking oils that would require anybody coming from another planet, the cooking oil refiners are ransoming Government and consumers as if no one else apart from them can produce cooking oils in Malawi.”
“The importation of crude oil is abuse of scarce resources, we are appealing to the Ministries of Trade and Industry to stop giving import licenses to the cooking oil refiners for the importation of crude oil.”
Malawi has huge technical expertise supported by many graduates from local Technical Colleges and Universities that can be empowered with resources to go into production of cooking oil and create linkages with local farmers to start producing locally Malawian cooking oil.
Last year, Malawi Government announced re-introduction of 16.5% Value Added Tax (VAT) on some domestic products such as cooking oil which resulted in sharp rise in prices of the commodity.

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