Fair Trade in Malawi’s Sugar, Tobacco, Cotton, etc
Well, both arguments hold true. Society benefits when organisations sponsor projects such as recycling to cut the rate of global warming but at the same time, an ethically minded organisation improves its image and therefore attracts new or continued custom. Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) as is popularly known has become a fundamental concept for most companies, it is a vehicle through which both society and organisations benefits. Most governments are willing to give companies revenue or capital grants for undertaking specific CSR projects.
In Malawi, the National Insurance Company(NICO), National Bank of Malawi and SOBO are some of the organisations setting the tone for good CSR by sponsoring a variety of projects and sports.
During my undergraduate research here in the United Kingdom, I was intrigued to discover that TESCO which is the largest supermarket in the UK stocks Fair Trade Brown Sugar and Tea Bags from Malawi. Another German owned LIDL supermarket also sells this Fair Trade product(sugar). Both sell these products at above normal or prevailing market prices. Companies are involved in selling Fair Trade products not because they necessarily want to make a profit(costs are high) but simply to enhance image.
One of the attributes of Fair Trade is that companies such as TESCO have become so powerful, they promote good Labour practices in producing countries, discourage child labour as was the case with GAP in Thailand and India. However, I wonder if Malawi is benefitting from these Fair Trade practices? I ask this because my dad who has been a smallholder farmer in Nkhota-kota(Dwangwa) for nearly 30 years still lives in abject poverty. He gets peanuts every year and the reason advanced to him and other farmers for this situation is that of poor world prices for sugar. Whilst I do not believe this, and have my own theory I believe in the spirit of professionalism that my blog is not the right forum to address matters of this nature. Fair Trade has become such a political tool to force companies to reform. NIKE manufacturers of the popular brand of sports shoes was accused of exploiting cheap chinese labour paying just above £1 for the productions of a pair of shoes while they sold the same shoe in the UK, USA and many countries including china for over £100 making lots of million pounds in profits. It was until the company was faced with calls by rights groups for people to abandon NIKE products that the company asked their suppliers to improve working conditions. Today, as I write, NIKE enjoys massive publicity by premiership football stars. Matter of fact, Arsenal football club which I support are sponsored in part by NIKE. I dont wear NIKE products for personal reasons, one of which is that I cant afford them but also that substitute products such as AND1 are equally and fashion-wise impressive but cheaper.
There has never been a better time to promote Malawian products to the rest of the world than this. The government should support cotton, bananas, fishing, sugar associations to get Fair Trade accreditation and encourage western supermarkets to invest in the expansion of their supply chain that undercuts unscrupulous middlemen for fair prices. The wholesale liberalisation of the economy just over 10 years ago resulted in some dubious traders conning farmers into selling their produce at below acceptable prices using phoney bags and tampered with scales. For this to work indegeneous companies must adopt good CSR policies, that encourage enterpreneurship from their suppliers by adopting fair prices when buying raw materials. There is no point in encouraging foreign companies to intervene in our mess when we let our own companies make huge profits at the detriment of farmers. Directors motive should not only be profit maximisation- Profit is just one element of measuring an organisation’s success, all other things are equally important.
The economics in the Tobacco industry leaves alot to be desired. Too much politics and a strong cartel aimed at breaking farmers hearts through price fixing. Suffice to say that sales for 2008 as reported in different media outlets at both Lilongwe and Limbe auction flours seem to be putting a smile on farmers faces. I strongly hope that this trend shall continue and that it simply not a political ploy as 2009 general elections draw nearer.
Fair Trade in Malawi’s Sugar, Tobacco, Cotton, etc
Well, both arguments hold true. Society benefits when organisations sponsor projects such as recycling to cut the rate of global warming but at the same time, an ethically minded organisation improves its image and therefore attracts new or continued custom. Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) as is popularly known has become a fundamental concept for most companies, it is a vehicle through which both society and organisations benefits. Most governments are willing to give companies revenue or capital grants for undertaking specific CSR projects.
In Malawi, the National Insurance Company(NICO), National Bank of Malawi and SOBO are some of the organisations setting the tone for good CSR by sponsoring a variety of projects and sports.
During my undergraduate research here in the United Kingdom, I was intrigued to discover that TESCO which is the largest supermarket in the UK stocks Fair Trade Brown Sugar and Tea Bags from Malawi. Another German owned LIDL supermarket also sells this Fair Trade product(sugar). Both sell these products at above normal or prevailing market prices. Companies are involved in selling Fair Trade products not because they necessarily want to make a profit(costs are high) but simply to enhance image.
One of the attributes of Fair Trade is that companies such as TESCO have become so powerful, they promote good Labour practices in producing countries, discourage child labour as was the case with GAP in Thailand and India. However, I wonder if Malawi is benefitting from these Fair Trade practices? I ask this because my dad who has been a smallholder farmer in Nkhota-kota(Dwangwa) for nearly 30 years still lives in abject poverty. He gets peanuts every year and the reason advanced to him and other farmers for this situation is that of poor world prices for sugar. Whilst I do not believe this, and have my own theory I believe in the spirit of professionalism that my blog is not the right forum to address matters of this nature. Fair Trade has become such a political tool to force companies to reform. NIKE manufacturers of the popular brand of sports shoes was accused of exploiting cheap chinese labour paying just above £1 for the productions of a pair of shoes while they sold the same shoe in the UK, USA and many countries including china for over £100 making lots of million pounds in profits. It was until the company was faced with calls by rights groups for people to abandon NIKE products that the company asked their suppliers to improve working conditions. Today, as I write, NIKE enjoys massive publicity by premiership football stars. Matter of fact, Arsenal football club which I support are sponsored in part by NIKE. I dont wear NIKE products for personal reasons, one of which is that I cant afford them but also that substitute products such as AND1 are equally and fashion-wise impressive but cheaper.
There has never been a better time to promote Malawian products to the rest of the world than this. The government should support cotton, bananas, fishing, sugar associations to get Fair Trade accreditation and encourage western supermarkets to invest in the expansion of their supply chain that undercuts unscrupulous middlemen for fair prices. The wholesale liberalisation of the economy just over 10 years ago resulted in some dubious traders conning farmers into selling their produce at below acceptable prices using phoney bags and tampered with scales. For this to work indegeneous companies must adopt good CSR policies, that encourage enterpreneurship from their suppliers by adopting fair prices when buying raw materials. There is no point in encouraging foreign companies to intervene in our mess when we let our own companies make huge profits at the detriment of farmers. Directors motive should not only be profit maximisation- Profit is just one element of measuring an organisation’s success, all other things are equally important.
The economics in the Tobacco industry leaves alot to be desired. Too much politics and a strong cartel aimed at breaking farmers hearts through price fixing. Suffice to say that sales for 2008 as reported in different media outlets at both Lilongwe and Limbe auction flours seem to be putting a smile on farmers faces. I strongly hope that this trend shall continue and that it simply not a political ploy as 2009 general elections draw nearer.
Are Harare and Nairobi setting the African Political pattern?
History has shown that politics follow a certain pattern/trend in Africa. I do not want to give merit to bad politics that we have witnessed, so I will not highlight examples. However, it is my prayer that all Malawians of goodwill shall condemn any attempt by our political leaders to disintegrate a united country such as our own in order to remain in power or gain positions of influence. A violent country such as Kenya and Zimbabwe retards the development of the Tourism Industry and slows foreign investment.
After so many Arrests, Intimidation, Torture, the worst economy…..and still no elections results, Thabo Mbeki says,"There is no crisis in Zimbabwe"
Zimbabwe has gone through the worst economic period in history. The facts are there for everyone to see yet Thabo Mbeki deliberately chooses to wear blindfolds for the sake of personal relationship with Mugabe. As far as Mbeki is concerned nothing exists in his infinite wisdom. First, he denied that HIV/Aids existed, today, South Africa remains one of the highly ravaged nations with the epidemic. His persistent denials refused him the opportunity to institute HIV/Aids preventative programmes. Many children are now opharned and live in care. Second, he denied that crime rate is high in South Africa but the truth is that RSA is the worst country on armed robberies and gun crimes in the southern Africa. Today, he does not seem to appreciate that the situation in Zimbabwe is worth of a crisis.
It does not suprise me that the ANC chose Zuma to stand as a presidential candidate. Not that am a fan of his but I guess he is good for a change than the clown in Mbeki. How many Zimbabweans can the South African government accommodate who are now flooding the country everyday for a better life. Until Mbeki and Mugabe realise that the era of the liberation struggle is long-gone, there shall be unprecedented damage like none we have seen before.
After so many Arrests, Intimidation, Torture, the worst economy…..and still no elections results, Thabo Mbeki says,"There is no crisis in Zimbabwe"
Zimbabwe has gone through the worst economic period in history. The facts are there for everyone to see yet Thabo Mbeki deliberately chooses to wear blindfolds for the sake of personal relationship with Mugabe. As far as Mbeki is concerned nothing exists in his infinite wisdom. First, he denied that HIV/Aids existed, today, South Africa remains one of the highly ravaged nations with the epidemic. His persistent denials refused him the opportunity to institute HIV/Aids preventative programmes. Many children are now opharned and live in care. Second, he denied that crime rate is high in South Africa but the truth is that RSA is the worst country on armed robberies and gun crimes in the southern Africa. Today, he does not seem to appreciate that the situation in Zimbabwe is worth of a crisis.
It does not suprise me that the ANC chose Zuma to stand as a presidential candidate. Not that am a fan of his but I guess he is good for a change than the clown in Mbeki. How many Zimbabweans can the South African government accommodate who are now flooding the country everyday for a better life. Until Mbeki and Mugabe realise that the era of the liberation struggle is long-gone, there shall be unprecedented damage like none we have seen before.
The FieldYork Education Scandal-Justice delivered or denied?
I commend the Judge and the councel for the prosecution in a case involving the former Education minister of Education Sam Mpasu. The judge for a well reasoned judgement and the prosecution councel for presenting a plausible and persuassive case leading to the conviction last week of the said person. However, I have problems with the delay with which such a high profile and important case has been handled. The offences were committed in 1994 when the convict was serving as a Minister of Education in theUDF-government. In the first count the court concluded that the prisoner abused his office by concluding an arrangement with Fieldyork international without authority and in disregard of procurement procedures. On the second count it was established that the prisoner arbitrarily directed his Principal Secretary to sign and send a fax to the sameFieldyork. On the third count the court concluded that Mr. Mpasu directed Mr. Safuli (former secretary for education) to send a letter of intent to Fieldyork. Mr Mpasu benefitted from the fieldyork transactions in 14 years ago and facts to that effect immediately became public knowledge.
His suspension was seen as superficial as Mpasu continued to enjoy executive previleges under Bakili Muluzi yet the free primary school suffered as the scheme lacked materials. The ministry was subsequently rocked by numerous corruption scandals including the K187m involvingCassim Chilumpha and Jeff wa Jeffrey. The catalogue of scandals that ensued occured because Mpasu was not punished at the time. Did the prosecution fail to carry out their job? Was Mpasu protected by the UDF government or indeed Mr Muluzi who is alleged to have been complicit to the case? Did Mpasu act alone or as the judge concluded he merely is a sacrificial lamb?
Contrast the handling of Mpasu case with that of Matilda Katopola(the clerk of parliament) who also fraughted procurement procedures by awarding contracts to her own firm(Monik’s Enterprise).Public servants must always put the interest of the public first before their own. Selfishness is a serious disease in Malawi which has made many Malawians in villages suffer because one individual wants everything for themselves. FridayJumbe built sunrise hotel from the alleged proceeds from sale of Maize when he worked as Excutive Director of Admarc. Malawians starved yet as I write, Jumbe is a free man.
One thing for sure is that the conviction of Mpasu will act as a deterent to those that might want to be involved in corrupt practices. Thats comforting for me,but as they say, Justice delayed is justice denied.
Northern Rock Bank and Directors Remuneration
Northern Rock sought government assistance from the Bank of England in September 2007. The Bank made a pre-tax loss of £167.7m in 2007 against profits of £626.7m in 2006(www.ft.com). This followed it writing-off £239.7m in bad debts and another £232.2m from investments linked to the US sub-prime property market which affected the Bank massively for not spreading its investments across many business lines.
Against the background of this mismanagement, it is sad to note that the taxpayers money has gone towards redeeming the troubled bank as well as paying its former directors as a tocken of appreciation for simply mismanaging the bank.
Meanwhile, job-cuts are looming, the bank has also intensified repossessions of properties under mortgage on its books, the exact time during which the bank is to repay the loan of about £25bn owed to tax-payers is very uncertain, the general economy has suffered leading into other banking institutions also asking the government for protection. Tax payers will have to incur alot of costs to lawyers, accountants, consultants and PR companies.
My concern is that terms of employment contract that allow directors to a huge payout following business failure is wrong as is absurd. It is the shareholders who suffer massive losses as these Executives are guaranteed their income for steering companies in hard waters. Its seems just 7 years after the collapse of Enron, most corporate governance regimes including the the self-regulatory UK’s Combine Code has alot of work to be done. The Sarbenes Oxley Act 2002, in the USA does place emphasis on CEO and CFOs responsibility to ensure that their risk management procedures are adequate otherwise they are punished by not paying out their bonuses.
If I were a shareholder of Northern Rock, I would be asking serious questions to the CEO and Finance Director to explain how a pre-tax profit of £626.7m in 2006 became a loss of £167.6m in 2007. Sadly, the former CEO has his career intact and his income unaffected and yet the shareholders have lost everything following the Nationalisation.
The University Quota system
I am against the policy. Some people think that those of us that are against this policy are doing so because:
(a) we come from the North and that,
(b)Northerners take themselves to be more intelligent than people from other regions
To begin with, my being against the idea of restricting University selection based on number of places allocated per district has nothing to do with where I come from. It is purely bourne out of the view that a candidate who scores well at MSCE should not be victimised based on where they come from.
Kamuzu Banda used this system to victimise students from the North and although things have changed in Malawi due to Democracy, as a Northerner, I have concerns that proponents of this system may at some point abuse it against my kids.
To argue that Northerners are complaining because they feel to be more intelligent than people from other regions is foolhardy. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that Northerners are more intelligent.The point is that any sane person should appreciate that the quota selection will discriminate some deserving students from one district who qualify more than others from another district but are left out because their district quota is exhausted. This is regardless of where they come from.
There is simply a thin line between equality of selection which the University Council is attempting to achieve and discrimination. I hope that the council members realise that a policy that achieves equality at the expence of discrimination is not equittable after all. The other social ill of the system is that it will result in most students facing identity crisis. How would a student whose mother comes from Rumphi and father from Mangochi choose where he/she comes from?
If the present system has resulted in some districts not benefiting, where is the evidence? The problem of poor education standards in some districts cannot be solved from the top. The governement ought to channel its energies wisely by ensuring that primary and secondary schools throughout the country have the same if not similar resources. The quota system at university level has some political overtones. Unless equality is achieved in development projects at regional level, the quota system being proposed sounds like pruning while all we need is to uproot the problem. It is worth noting that some cultural practices in some districts does not propagate a hardworking spirit amongst students. Some NGOs are working hard to discourage such practices but it takes time to change peoples’ attitude. This is what is needed at the moment. But why should students from certain parts of the country pay for the misdeed of other districts cultural dysfunctionalities?
Four Types of Government Operatives: Bullies, Muggers, Sneak Thieves, and Con Men
December 20, 2007
Robert Higgs
Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.
—George Orwell, Animal Farm
The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you’ve always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you.
Sometimes government functionaries and their private-sector supporters want simply to bully you, to dictate what you must do and what you must not do, regardless of whether anybody benefits from your compliance with these senseless, malicious directives. The drug laws are the best current example, among many others, of the government as bully. Our rulers presently enforce a host of laws that combine the worst aspects of puritanical priggishness and the invasive, pseudo-scientific, therapeutic state. They tolerate our pursuit of happiness only so long as we pursue it exclusively in officially approved ways: gin, yes; weed, no.
Notwithstanding the great delight that our rulers take in tormenting us with their absurdly inconsistent nanny-state commands, they generally have bigger fish to fry. Above all, the government and its special-interest backers want to take our money. If these people ran a store, they might aptly call it Robberies R Us. Their credo is simple and brazen: “you have money, and we want it.”
Unlike the sincere street criminal, however, the robber in official guise rarely puts his proposition to you in the blunt form of “your money or your life,” however much he intends to relate to you on precisely such terms. (If you doubt my characterization of these intentions, test what happens if you steadfastly resist at every step as the brigands escalate their threats: first ordering you to pay, then billing you for unpaid balances plus penalties and interest, sending you a summons, and ultimately beating you into submission or killing you for resisting arrest. Your sustained, open resistance always ends in the state’s use of violence against you, in either your forcible imprisonment or your removal from the land of the living, after which your memory will be defamed by your designation as a criminal—governments never settle for mere brutality, but always supplement it with unabashed presumptuousness.)
When I say “rarely,” I do not mean that the authorities never carry out their plunder blatantly. Throughout the land, for example, criminal courts, acting as de facto muggers, strip people of great sums of money in the aggregate by fining them for conduct that ought never to have been criminalized in the first place—drug-law violations, prostitution, gambling, antitrust-law violations, traffic infractions, reporting violations, doing business without a license, and innumerable other victimless “crimes.” The predatory judges and their police henchmen care no more about justice than I care to live on a diet of pig pancreas and boiled dandelions. They are simply taking people’s money because it’s there to be taken with minimal effort. In this manifestation, government amounts to a gigantic speed trap.
The more common way for government officials to rob you, however, involves their seizure of so-called taxes, which take countless forms, all of which are purported to be collected in order to finance—mirabile dictu—benefits for you. Such a deal! You’d have to be a real ingrate to complain about the government’s snatching your money for the express purpose of making your world a better place.
Sometimes the “political exchange” into which you are hauled kicking and screaming rests on such a ludicrous foundation, however, that honesty compels us to classify it, too, as a mugging. I have in mind such compassionately conservative policies as stripping taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars and handing the money over, for the most part, to rich people engaged in large-scale agribusiness and, sometimes, to landowners who don’t even bother to represent themselves as farmers. The apologies that the agribusiness whores in Congress make for this daylight robbery are so patently stupid and immoral that the whole shameless affair resembles nothing so much as the schoolyard bully’s grabbing the little kids’ lunch money and then taunting them aggressively, “If you don’t like it, why don’t you do something about it?” Every five years, when the farm-subsidy law expires and a new one is enacted, a few members of Congress pose as reformers of this piracy, but truly serious reforms never occur, and even the minor ones that come along from time to time prove unavailing, as the farm-booty interests invariably suck up “emergency relief” payments from the public treasury later on to make up for any shortfalls from the main subsidy programs.
Government sneak thieves, in contrast, fear that they may occupy more vulnerable positions than the agribusiness gang and similarly impudent special-interest groups cum legislators, so they dare not taunt the little kids so flagrantly. Instead, they specialize in legislative riders, budgetary add-ons and earmarks, logrolling, omnibus “Christmas tree” bills, and other gimmicks designed to conceal the size, the beneficiaries, and sometimes even the existence of their theft. At the end of the day, the taxpayers find there’s nothing left in the till, but they have little or no idea where all of their money went. Finding out by reading an appropriations act is next to impossible, inasmuch as these statutes are almost incomprehensible to everyone but the legislative insiders and their staff members who devise them and write them down in a combination of Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit.
For example, for many years, a single congressman from northeastern Pennsylvania—first Dan Flood and then Joe McDade—substantially enriched the anthracite coal interests of that region by inserting a brief, one-paragraph limitation rider in the annual appropriations act for the Department of Defense. The upshot of this obscure provision was that Pennsylvania anthracite was transported to Germany to provide heating fuel for U.S. military bases that could have been heated more cheaply by using local resources. This coals-to-Newcastle shenanigan was a classic sneak-thief gambit, a thing of legislative beauty, but every year’s budget contains thousands of schemes that operate with similar effect, if not in an equally audacious manner.
Unlike the government sneak thieves, the government con men openly advertise—indeed, expect to receive great credit for—certain uses of the taxpayers’ money that are represented as bringing great benefits to the general public or a substantial segment of it. Surely the best example of the con man’s art is so-called national defense, a bottomless pit into which the government now dumps, in various forms (many of them not officially classified as “defense”), approximately a trillion dollars of the taxpayers’ money each year. The government stoutly maintains, of course, that all ordinary Americans are constantly in grave danger of attack by foreigners—nowadays, by Islamic terrorists, in particular—and that these voracious wolves can be kept from the door only by the maintenance and active deployment of large armed forces equipped with ultra-sophisticated (and correspondingly expensive) equipment and stationed at bases in more than a hundred countries and on ships at sea around the globe.
Without dismissing the alleged dangers entirely, a sensible person quickly appreciates that the threat is slight—just do the math, using reasonable probability coefficients—whereas the cost of (purportedly) dealing with it is colossal. In short, as General Smedley Butler informed us more than seventy years ago, the modern military establishment, along with most of its blessed wars, is for the most part nothing but a racket. Worse, because of the way it engages and co-opts powerful elements of the private sector, it gives rise to a costly and dangerous form of military-economic fascism. Lately, the classic military-industrial-congressional complex has been supplemented by an even more menacing (to our liberties) security-industrial-congressional complex, whose aim is to enrich its participants by equipping the government for more effectively spying on us and invading our privacy in ways great and small.
Worst of all, despite everything that is claimed for the military’s protective powers, its operation and deployment overseas leave us ordinary Americans facing greater, not lesser, risk than we would otherwise face, because of the many enemies it cultivates who would have left us alone, if the U.S. military had only left them alone. (Yes, Virginia, they are over here because we’re over there.) The president routinely declares that the hugely increased expenditures and overseas deployments for military purposes since 2001 have reduced the threat of terrorism, but, in fact, terrorist incidents and deaths have increased, not decreased. Although privileged elements of the political class gain from militarism and neo-imperialist wars, the rest of us invariably lose economic well-being, real security, and all too often life itself. In 2004, people who said that security against terrorism was their top concern voted disproportionately, by an almost 7-to-1 margin, for George W. Bush. They had been conned.
Although the mugger, the sneak thief, and the con man are not the only types of government operatives, they make up a large proportion of the leading figures in government today. The lower ranks, especially in the various police agencies, have a disproportionate share of the bullies. No attempt to understand government can succeed without a clear understanding of these ideal types and each one’s characteristic modus operandi. With this understanding firmly in mind, you will remain permanently immune to the infectious swindle, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” The truth, of course, is the exact opposite: I say again, the government—this vile assemblage of bullies, muggers, sneak thieves, and con men—is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you.
4 Steps just above a Quarter of a century-Gone too young!!
A dark cloud descended upon us
Villie, you breathed your last
In the caring hands of MUM, you slept
Never to wake up again.
A tower of security was taken from us
You were in the Army 5 years and 5 days
How Ironic?
You left your colleagues and family just 2 months
after your 29th Birthday
On a satarday afternoon of a hot summer day.
Away from home, I would call and ask;
Zikuyenda amwene? and
1-2, 1-2 you would answer
A catch phrase you will be remembered by.
Villie, You had unreserved love for children,
Yet you left your daughter Tumbikani,
So young at 10 months
The thought, she will grow up not enjoying
the same love you gave to others is difficult to comprehend
I can not seem to get answers why you had to go.
Today, I call your number hoping I would hear the reassuring voice
It seems you are outside the access area.
The only voice I remember is your own prothetic phrase
“Ndikubwera amwene” answering to my question “how are you feeling?”
How weird!
You also prophesied to mum how you wished you could be dressed
in a suit as you were about to embark on a long journey to Dwangwa
A journey that was to take you to your final resting place.
Your loss from this life has been a hard blow on family members
I have no one to talk to about our brotherly but humble past. No one!!
The only thing that comforts me is the realisation
That you have a peaceful life.
Although you are not here in fresh,
Your spirit lives.
Your death has enlightened many of the good things you did
Very kind, warm, compassionate, generous, friendly, and approachable
Yet you never blew the trumpet of your own work.
Till we meet again Villie,
May the Good Lord grant you Eternal peace
Your Brother
George Mzomera
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