Government summons Raiply over ‘stolen’ 9000ha of Viphya Plantation
The Ministry of Forestry and Climate Change has summoned top management of the private and foreign Timber processing company, Raiply Malawi Limited to Capital Hill for a meeting on the issue of the 8550 hectares it illegally grabbed from the 54,000-hectare Viphya Plantation in Mzimba District.
According to a copy of the letter written to the company’s CEO Krisnadas Nair Puthiyedah dated 19th November 2023, a copy NyasaTimes has obtained, the meeting will take place on Friday 24th November 2023.
The summons follows comprehensive findings that the company, which currently manages the 20,000-hectare concession area in the Viphya Plantation at Chikangawa in the Mzimba district, brazenly and illegally added 8550 hectares to its concession, making it 28850 hectares, much to the chagrin of indigenous players and locals.
The revelation is contained in a 22-page report by an independent consultant to assess the Viphya Plantation boundaries in the concession areas. At US$10 per hectare as ground rent, it means Raiply Malawi Limited has defrauded the Malawi government of revenues amounting to US$ 256,500 from 2020 to date and the government will continue to lose US$85,550 per year if this malpractice is not nipped or corrected.
However, it has been found that during the mapping exercise meant to establish real boundaries as outlined in the concession agreement, Raiply Malawi Limited through its mercurial CEO CEO Krisnadas Nair Puthiyedah gave the government a cold shoulder and did not participate.
However, the company later attended a validation meeting of the findings of the mapping exercise and accepted the findings.
“It is clear from the mapping exercise which you were duly informed of and asked to nominate your member of staff to participate, of which you deliberately ignored, that the size of the concession area is not 20,000 hectares. Yet all these years that’s what we were meant to believe.
“To make matters worse, the 2020 revised edition maintained the same hectares which means that the government has been deprived of the much-needed revenue for the past three years,” Secretary for Natural Resources and Climate Change Yusuf Mkungula in the letter.
Mkungula said the Ministry intended to make sure that all concessions in the Viphya have clear boundaries and well-defined areas as reflected in their respective concession agreements.
“The fact remains that compartment C214 is not in the Raiply Concession area as such trees therein cannot belong to Raiply. If you indeed planted the trees as indicated in your letter, then it can be assumed that you did this deliberately to acquire the land illegally,” Mkunguka said.
In 2020, the Malawi government gave Raiply Malawi Limited carte blanche in the management of its 20,000-hectare concession area, when the government bowed out of the management of the famed Viphya Plantation.
The major 2020 amendments to the 2009 concession agreement included the following; upfront payment for all trees and wood that had been inventoried in the concession area, exclusive rights and denial of third-party access to forestry resources in the concession area and payment of concession fees and other rates.
The Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, the Public Private Partnership Commission and Government Contracting Unit in consultation with Raiply comprised the stakeholder team that made these amendments.
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