The recent gazetted Forestry Act will remain a ridiculous and most punitive act against poor Malawians if the Government will not move in to cushion and provide alternative source of energy for the poor. This law in its current state, looks like a law done by the rich to affect the poor. It is more likely to victimize the poor and push them more into poverty.
On a positive side, the law is a prohibitive action aiming at saving the environment, trees and Malawi’s forests by among other things criminalizing charcoal production which is attributed to the environmental degradation. However, the law has come at a time when Malawians are facing the worst economic times let alone the country doesn’t have alternative source of energy for the majority.
With less than 10% of the population having access to electricity and those that have access, the supply is erratic, it means majority of Malawians can’t depend on electricity. Most people requiring electricity are not being serviced and people are waiting for over two years for ESCOM to connect them after making an application of the same.
In Malawi, over 97% of the population relies on either firewood or charcoal as a source of energy and unfortunately these two are the only reliable source of energy available, and ironically they are the subject of the forestry act. Ironically, the touted environmental friendly charcoal is expensive for most Malawians where a 10kg bag is costing over K6,000 at the same time not readily available to the majority.
The alternative and available option to either charcoal or electricity would be Gas. Unfortunately, in order for gas to be considered as the better alternative, there is a massive drive and deliberate policies that the Government must adopt and put in place.
Current prices of gas are expensive and unaffordable to majority of Malawians. With the gas price at K 2,956 per kg, an average family cannot afford as the minimum needs is 14kg per month, which translate to K41,400 per month. The price for a portable handigas is hovering at around K 95,000 each.
With these ridiculous prices of gas and gas equipment, it is a fallacy to expect that most Malawians can use gas as alternative source of energy. To this extent, FND would like to urge the Government to put a two year moratorium to the implementation of the act.
In that period, it must put measures that address the alternative source of energy for the majority of Malawians. We recommend the Government to consider;
1. Subsidizing the price of handigas for the poor Malawians to an affordable price of K10,000 each. Malawi has a way of identifying the needy, they have a data base of those benefitting from the AIP and Social Cash transfer in determining who benefits.
2. Remove all import taxes and make households gas stoves, cookers, gas cylinders and appliances imported on duty free.
3. Subsidizing the price of gas for the poor who benefits from the access to the handigases. The subsidized price for gas for the poor must not go beyond K1,500 per kg.
4. Carrying out a mass awareness campaign on gas usage and its safety issues. There are a lot of misconceptions associated with gas use in Malawi that must be addressed.
5. Government must improve the availability of electricity to the population in Malawi.
FND urges the Government to consider the proposed moratorium on the forestry act within the reasonable time and put in place necessary steps to protect the poor which are likely to suffer as a result of this punitive law. Failure by the Government, will force FND to mobilize the poor to rise up and reject the implementation of this draconian and discriminatory law against the poor.
Signed
Fryson Chodzi Bright Kampaundi
NATIONAL COORDINATOR CHAIRPERSON
