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President Bingu wa Mutharika is consulting on what decision to take with more than one million Malawians facing hunger.
The World Food Programme (WFP) disclosed three weeks ago that it will begin distributing food in form of aid to about 250,000 people next month and hopes to cater for more than one million beneficiaries by early 2005.
Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Bright Msaka said last Thursday the President is considering various advice on the hunger situation.
“The President has received a lot of advice from many people on the situation and he is looking into that,” said Msaka.
He said the President will make a decision after going through the advice.
Msaka could, however, not say whether the President will declare a state of disaster or not.
“I can’t say whether he will do that or not. If a state of disaster is declared, we will all hear about it,” said Msaka.
Malawi Human Rights Commission executive secretary Emiliana Tembo said government should work on mobilising funds as soon as possible to ensure that nobody starves.
“Declaring a state of disaster is not a solution. People should be pushing for government to stock up food,” said Tembo.
Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Church chair Fr Stan Chinguo said government should desist “from too much talk and start acting”.
“Let’s see results. We shouldn’t let people die of hunger. Let food be given to people as soon as possible,” said Chinguo.
WFP, which is already feeding about 5,000 severely malnourished children and their caretakers in special units across the country and giving extra rations to 18,000 moderately malnourished children and 10,000 pregnant or nursing mothers, stated that the hunger situation follows drought and flooding which hit the country’s farming sector.
Chief Secretary for the civil service Charles Matabwa, who was Secretary for Agriculture, said soon after the disclosure by WFP government had come up with answers to the impending disaster.
“No one will starve,” said Matabwa.
In his address to Parliament on June 28, President Bingu wa Mutharika said government would obtain at least 160,000 metric tonnes of maize locally and from neighbouring countries to avert a possible crisis.
A survey by the Consortium for Southern Africa Food Security Emergency, which started two years ago in response to the food crisis in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, said last month more than half of Malawian households face starvation from this month because food from the harvest is running out.
The survey’s analysis report by district shows that about nine out of 10 families in Thyolo, Chikwawa, Karonga and Rumphi fall within the three-months range. But the report said people in Thyolo, Nkhata Bay, Rumphi and Zomba may be affected more seriously than those in other districts because they have fewer alternative means of getting food.
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