Malawi declares position over Lake Malawi wrangle with Tanzania
Malawi Government authorities have submitted the country’s official position to the Africa Forum for Former Heads of State and Government over the ongoing border dispute with Tanzania over Lake Malawi.
Malawi’s foreign affairs minister Ephraim Mganda Chiume made the submission on Thursday to the Chairperson of the Forum and Former President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano in Mozambican capital Maputo.
According to a Malawi government statement made available to Nyasa Times, the move is in accordance with the deadline which the Forum set when Malawi and Tanzania submitted a Joint Application for Mediation to the Forum on 21st December, 2012.
“The Chairperson of the Forum welcomed Malawi’s submission and intimated that he had been informed that Tanzania would make its submission at a later date through diplomatic channels,” reads the news statement in part.
Chissano also said that the Forum will proceed to consider the two countries’ submissions and will engage with the two governments in line with the roadmap of the mediation process.
According to the statement, Chiume also took advantage of the occasion to convey on behalf of the Government of Malawi, condolences for the deaths and suffering recently caused by heavy floods that have hit various parts of Mozambique.
In the stand-off, Tanzania is seeking 50 per cent ownership of the lake while Malawi claims 100 percent saying whole part of the lake under dispute belonged to Malawi.
The dispute comes as a British company Surestream Petroleum is conducting Environmental Impact Assessment on the lake after Malawi government awarded it a contract last year to start gas and oil exploration there.
Previous efforts to settle the dispute between the two countries have been ending in a deadlock.
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