In a notice dated June 4 2020, director of Environmental Affairs Tawonga Mbale-Luka asked the companies to comply with the department’s order and fined them K5 million each to be settled by June 20 2020. The law also imposes a custodial sentence of up to three months for offenders. If found guilty, the companies risk paying fines in millions of kwacha. On June 4 2020, the Department of Environmental Affairs closed four companies-OG Plastics, City Plastics Industries, Anchor Industries and Qingdao Plastics based in Lilongwe and Blantyre-for continuing to produce thin plastics of less than 60 microns contrary to the Supreme Court order and the Environmental Management Act. Said the minister: “In as much as we want to enforce the law, which is a must, we must also be mindful of the political environment.” He also claimed that public utility service providers have also suspended disconnections of supply for non-payment of bills until after the election.
When asked on the link between saving the environment and elections, the minister said in a telephone interview that elections are a sensitive matter and that his decision considered the current political climate. The memo was meant to appraise the minister on an exercise the Environmental Affairs Department undertook to inspect several plastic manufacturing companies in Blantyre and Lilongwe based on information that some were contravening the law by continuing to produce the banned thin plastics.
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Open factories and impose a fine,” reads Vuwa Kaunda’s comment dated Jand written in free hand on the memo from the ministry’s principal secretary (PS) dated Junder file reference MET PW/C/05. Hold this exercise for now until after elections. In an internal communication we have seen, the minister has instructed the ministry to facilitate the reopening of the factories, which manufacture environmentally hazardous thin plastics, in defiance of a Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal judgement upholding the ban. Minister of Environment, Tourism and Wildlife Symon Vuwa Kaunda has ordered the re-opening of four plastic manufacturing companies sealed two weeks ago for contravening the law, opting to prioritise the June 23 fresh presidential election.
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