Man Arrested for Repackaging Fake Fertilizer
Police in Mzuzu have arrested a 41-year-old man for allegedly possessing 17 bags of counterfeit fertilizer weighing 50 kilograms each.
Mzuzu Police Spokesperson Paul Tembo says the suspect Blessings Nyirenda has been arrested in the city following a tip-off that the businessperson was reprocessing and repackaging the fertilizer in NPK sacks belonging to Smallholder Farmers Fertilizer Revolving fund of Malawi (SFFRFM).
“We have been working together with the Malawi Bureau Standards (MBS) who got the wind about this illegal business. Our officers then moved in quickly and arrested the suspect who is being kept at Mzuzu Police Station waiting for a court appearance,’’ said Tembo.
Malawi Bureau of Standards Regional Manager for the north Kissinger Chiunjira says the fertilizer will be taken to the organization’s laboratory for testing.
Said Chiunjira: “We have the fertilizer in our custody because we want to know what chemicals were being used to repackage and reprocess it.”
In mid-August this year, Lilongwe Police Station also found 92 bags of fake fertilizer at a house at Sankhani Village in Traditional Authority Njewa in the district.
Access to genuine fertilizer coupled with high prices has been a pressing issue in the country, impacting crop yields and agricultural productivity.
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A Mzuzu-based livestock farmer Boniface Jubeki of Chingalu Farms has implored the government to control the exportation of the commodity, saying current trend is pushing upwards the cost of production and prices of meat and its products in the region.
“Prices of meat and its products have risen in the recent months. In 2022, we used buy a kilogram of beef and pork at K2, 500. But now the same is trading at K4, 200, simply because farmers are buying animal feed like gaga at a higher rate.”
He added; in the same period a 20-liter tin of Maize bran was selling at K500 but it is now going at K1000.
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Said Chithyola-Banda: “I don’t think there is smuggling of maize bran to some African countries. And, what I know is these traders seek export documents from our offices which we provide after scrutinizing the business.”
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