By Vinjeru Ngwira
Concerned Lilongwe Business Women Association (LIBWA) which was Established in August 2020 by Harriet and Juliet later a group of Women joined them on 02 October 2020 met the Ministry of Gender under the Theme Empowering Women to Develop Malawi.
Avant publications talked to Mrs Harriet Kanyemba Malili the President of LIBWA who confirmed that in attendance were the MHRRC, Malawi Revenue Authority, Immigration, Malawi Bureau of Standards, COMESA, OXFAM, TRADE representative, COMESA and NGO-GCN.
LIBWA has a membership of more than 800 women around Malawi.
Mrs Malili stressed that as local women they are demanding freedom to run business and promote locally produced items such as vegetables and others, which are being imported by foreign businesses.
Talking to avantmalawi.com she said “women are promised businesses by each and every government that comes, but comes time when the promises are swept under rug and over 80 percent of businesses are not promoting local products.”
In Malawi all big supermarkets have a tendency of importing agricultural products such as onions, potatoes just to mention few. These products locally and this worries them. Beside the fact that foreigners are also favoured in running of these messages.
Frankly, local women have the expertise, knowledge, passion and talents to grow their businesses and the state needs to bank on them for profitability but this opportunity is never given to Malawian business women.
In another attempt, LIBWA had thorough discussions with MRA on goods and services that are taxable when reached Malawian boarders. Proposition to usher Malawian women to be saved from certain levie fees and tax was later introduced, to which MRA promised to revert later.
LIBWA stressed the needful of decentralized running businesses by Malawians. “We are not calling on foreigners to stop businesses, but we are demanding that most businesses opportunities that can be extracted from Malawian products must not be imported from else boarders rather let Women of Malawi be empowered to run such businesses.
Speaking to avantmalawi Harriet as a representative of the fellow women says she is hopeful their proposition will be addressed in the next six months
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Nice move but there is no such business