If we can begin with the issues of the environment, at what stage are you in terms of environmental laws and protection?
The environment is one of the most important aspects of what we are trying to achieve in this Ministry, because wherever we look and whatever we do impedes on the environment in one way or another. The environment problems we have in Africa are different to those of the western world, yet we certainly have some problems. Malawi’s largest problem is deforestation, and as a result of this, the wildlife is affected, our water and rivers become affected, the breeding of our fish decreases, our river banks become eroded. It also has a tremendous effect on our main energy source of supply, hydro electricity, and we are finding that there is less and less water, and as a result of this we may get into problems with the turbines not being able to turn in the water, meaning that we have to bring in dredging equipment and to dredge throughout. All this is because of deforestation.
Where we had beautiful, lush forests years ago, we do not have that many big forests available now because people are cutting trees for firewood, even indigenous trees which take forty to fifty years to grow. This is a problem which we have to live with for some time. The immediate solution to this is to acquire fast-growing trees which we can replenish every year, every day in fact, so that within five years these trees will be mature and ready to use as fire wood. Looking back a few years back, we have what is known as the annual tree planting day. Since I have been in the Ministry, we have decided to extend this from one day to one week – a whole week for tree planting. This year we planted about four million trees, and next year we hope to plant more. There is an incentive now to plant more trees, because the village, the secondary school, the constituency, the district and the region all get prizes if they plant the most trees. These prizes vary from cash to development projects within the constituency, which might be a donation for the renovation of the local school or hospital, for example.
We are doing all these things partly for the energy sector, because it is all interlinked. If our energy sector was more spread out, and if there were more users, it would not be so bad. But we only have 4 per cent of the population in Malawi that has and is using electricity. Of this, less than one percent of the rural population uses electricity, and the rural population represents over 85 per cent of the total population. So what do they use for cooking? Only firewood. This means that they have to cut down trees, for cooking, heating and everything else. Then when it gets dark, they go to sleep, because there is no access to electricity for lighting. So we are looking at the environment, and for people to have a better life we are looking at clean, renewable energy such as solar energy, wind energy, using any compost and making it into brickets which can be used instead of firewood.
There is a common theme which is the development of rural areas in the country. Is there a strategy to combine the projects of the government so that the country can take this step forward?
Where governments used to have a central coordinating team, what we are doing now is taking this to the community level. Trees that we have planted are now being taken care of by the local village, and we help them plant, harvest and maintain these forests. This gives them a sense of ownership, and this invariably leads them to take better care of their trees. We have set up village management committees throughout the country in forestry, fisheries, and all other departments. People then become community minded so that government and ministries have more of a coordinating role, rather than actually doing it ourselves and policing the community like we did before. In this way, the community which is managing their own environmental resources.
What do the next five years herald for the development of the community?
What we foresee in the next five years is certainly an improvement. We have developed a vision, 20-20, which we use as our bible. This vision was developed by our party, the United Democratic Front, which is now in government. So every six months, all ministries provide a summary of what we have done in order to ensure that we are achieving what we have promised. We look at it on a party and a government point of view – what did we inherit, what have we decided to do, what is the process of implementation? Now it is no longer a question of writing a five year plan, it is time to set the foundations for change. Having come from a thirty year period with only one way of life, to change this in five years is not possible… you need ten years to only start the foundation of what you want to do. So we are following our 20-20 vision to make sure that we are staying on the right track.
In the developing world we have numerous problems which are imposed to us by the developed countries on issues we have to work on now, not because of our neglect of the environment, but because the environment as we all know has no boundaries. Global warming is an example of how we are becoming more and more exposed.
Next week we are attending the United Nation Environmental Program meeting in Nairobi. This is one of the only meetings of the United Nations that is not in New York but in Afric So the Ministers of Environment from all over the World will be there, and at the end of the week we will be all leaving for Sweden where the whole world is again there to discuss what have been the achievements for the environment. | You will find out that developing countries are getting more and more up tight on these issues. We never had these problems 20 or 30 years ago. Why do we have them now? Is it only because our population is increasing, or is it also because of developed countries which are creating global warming?
As a result, it is now a problem that Africa has to face, and we are starting to have big problems on these environmental issues.
Are you also looking to attract investments and joint ventures from the public and private sectors?
Yes. All Ministries in Government have liberalized, and we believe that Government should take care of policy issues and everything else should be liberalised. At one time, we had our own messengers, our own cleaners... everyone was employed by government and was a civil servant. Today, we have opened up so that private sector can take initiative. The same is applied to all, from Finance to Transport. There are now no areas of limitation for the private sector.
Within the Energy sector, what are the strongest institutions here either governmental or private?
The energy here has one utility, which is the electricity supplier commission. It started as a parastatal company, 100% owned by the government, until a few months ago when we decided to change it to a limited incorporated company. We have broken it down and liberalized the energy system. Everybody can now come in and produce their own electricity. Everybody can now come in, go to ESCOM and join us in generating our existing power plants. As I said, there is 92% of this that hydroelectric up to now. But the private sector can also play a role in transmission, generation or in distribution – that is all open to them.
In some countries privatisation and investment in energy is at full speed, however, companies can invest in energy and then sell it back to the government….
That is not the case here. We work side by side! The moment we came into power in 1994, the first thing we did was liberalise. Maybe we went too far because we liberalized without conditions. Today we say we should manage, not control. It is for the benefit of Malawians. We became more liberal than the American and opened the flood gates; we now need to control them.
Looking at aquaculture, what are the latest developments?
Malawi is not yet known for its fishes except the Chambo. You have to go a long way to eat a fish that is better than that. Fish accounts for about 70% of the protein in the country. We have been looking at aquaculture issues because there is a tendency to say that our lakes are getting poorer.
The method of fishing that was used 60 years ago is the same, where you can only fish in shallow waters. So what happens is, as more and more people come into the fishing trade, using the same fishing methods, we may find a decline of fishes within shallow waters. But in the centre, the deep waters of Lake Malawi, there are fishes which have not yet been discovered. There are over 4000 species in the Lake, but we do not have the adapted equipment to go there and find out the fish population we have.
So we now have aquaculture fish farming which has been introduced a while ago in the North, the South and the centre of Lake Malawi. It is just as profitable as tobacco. By breeding the fish in fish farms, as well as getting them from the Lake, we can build our fish stocks. Technology is such that we now have very strong scientific studies carried out and we are able to breed Chambo in large quantity.
We even have a Thaï company which has joint venture with MDC and will export prawns and fish. We are also looking at the cage culture, involving cages in the water to feed the fish and grow them in the Lake. The idea came from Norway. In Malaysia, they are now using this method a lot. Zimbabwe has started it the past few years and they are doing tremendous business by exporting every week tones and tones of their type of fish, the Talapia, which is not even as good as the chambo.
What will you underline as being the most important issues that you would like to complete before the end of your term?
I would like to see a mining operation. This country cannot be a country isolated of mining resources. When you look at Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, they all have huge resources. Moreover, when you go back to the early 1920s, there was a gold rush. The gold has never been found. The government does not have enough money to go and search for it, nor do we have the necessary equipments to start heavy researches, but we are now trying to bring investors to come and explore.
We wish to spend money in geology – we have been conducting three surveys that have shown that the Lake has deposits that could be oil or national gas. My number one project will be mining. We depend too much on agriculture and especially tobacco. Mining could be an excellent alternative. Environment, energy and fishing are the three others main points of concentration. The Ministry is now covering mining, energy and geology.
What would be your final message to our Forbes Global readers?
We must be very careful as there are no borders to the Global outlook. We should all take responsibility for what has happened to the environment. We should be more appreciative of the problems that have to be dealt with and take active role in what is happening to the environment. It is a global problem that must be resolved globally. |
MINISTRYof NATURAL RESOURCES and ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS