FARMERS CALLING FOR FREE TRADE

Sir,

During the recent agri-business forum at Mhlume Country Club hosted by EswatiniBank which has just announce a E315 million boost to the agriculture sector in the last three years, some farmers demanded that the bank should not bar them from selling their produce to informal traders (bomake bemakethe), saying it was these traders who paid them a reasonable price compared to big corporations like National Maize Corporation (NMC) and NAMBoard.

As EswatiniBank’s Executive Manager Operations, Enock Mavimbela rightly put it: “What we must not deviate from is the fact that the loan must be repaid. Credit extended is money that belongs to the public, and must be paid back to help others.”,  I believe farmers who benefitted from the bank loans should be freed to find the best way to pay back the money. Not long ago, it was the consumers who faced an almost similar dilemma, which threatened their freedom of choice. National Agricultural Marketing Board (NAMBoard) had raised its discomfort with the fact that locals were buying cheap mealie-meal from South Africa. The rationale from NAMBoard was that this practice is detrimental to the local market. As a consumer and taxpayer, I would like to know how much margin is made by the local market. NAMBoard should tell us why we should continue to be charged exorbitant prices for mealie-meal and other commodities just to keep the millers in business.

The reasons that drive emaSwati to purchase mealie meal in RSA are in my view the following:
The huge price differential between RSA and Eswatini;
The better quality of the mealie meal from RSA.
The high cost of living that has affected emaSwati, making most families to go for cheaper basic food stuffs, just to survive.
Why should emaSwati be made to sustain inefficient industries, logic says if these guys are unable to compete with their RSA counter-parts, they have to either go under or come up with innovative ideas that will drive their costs down!

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