{{Malawian President Joyce Banda has banned the export of maize to neighbouring country, including Tanzania.}}<\/p>\n
Ms Banda has also ordered tighter security along the borders to curb rampant smuggling of the grain. The move follows an acute shortage of maize, which is a staple in the southern African country.<\/p>\n
President Banda announced the ban on Monday after visiting the country\u2019s main grain reserves run by the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA).<\/p>\n
About two million people face starvation in Malawi after adverse weather affected maize production.<\/p>\n
Police have in recent months seized hundreds of tonnes of maize along the country\u2019s borders. Authorities believe some of the maize was destined for Tanzania and Kenya.<\/p>\n
President Banda said she had been informed that most markets had no maize, adding that the export and smuggling of the commodity had caused an \u201cartificial\u201d shortage in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have therefore with immediate effect ordered that police and Agriculture ministry to check and seal our borders against these illegal exports,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
President Banda said it made no sense that Malawi was experiencing a food shortage when the country was implementing a farm input subsidy programme that was aimed at enabling poor people to achieve food security.<\/p>\n
Malawi police recently arrested four Tanzanians and a Malawian as they were allegedly trying to smuggle out about 200 bags of maize.<\/p>\n
However, a local leader in Karonga, the district bordering Tanzania, has accused Malawian police of profiteering from maize smuggling, and said the Malawi Defence Forces should be deployed to man the borders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Malawian President Joyce Banda has banned the export of maize to neighbouring country, including Tanzania.}} Ms Banda has also ordered tighter security along the borders to curb rampant smuggling of the grain. The move follows an acute shortage of maize, which is a staple in the southern African country. President Banda announced the ban on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-4839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-dusabemungu-ange-de-la-victoire"],"bylines":[{"id":474,"name":"Dusabemungu Ange de la Victoire","slug":"dusabemungu-ange-de-la-victoire","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":474,"name":"Dusabemungu Ange de la Victoire","slug":"dusabemungu-ange-de-la-victoire","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4839"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=4839"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=4839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}