Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) has engaged Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) to undertake a fresh test on the alleged rotten maize to determine whether it is fit for human consumption as it has emerged.

Admarc head of finance Chrissy Nyirenda said the State produce trader initially checked the quality of the maize and found that out of 63 000 metric tonnes (MT) that was under NBS Bank plc collateral, 50 000MT was approved for human consumption while 13 000MT did not meet the requirements.

Nyirenda said MBS has been engaged to do the test again to see whether the maize is fit for consumption or not as ADMARC board cannot prove if the maize is rotten, that is why MBS have been engaged to conclude accordingly.

Nyirenda was responding to a request by Machinga East representative Esther Jolobala for the cluster members to visit Admarc to check the maize that is said to be unfit for human consumption.

After Nyirenda’s response, Jolobala wondered if engaging MBS meant that Admarc did not trust the entity that was initially tasked to scrutinize the maize.

However, Parliamentary agriculture committee chairperson Sameer Suleman maintained that there is no maize that is rotten and that the government must stop playing games.

Suleman said government must stop playing games with food, as they are busy right now going from market to market trying to pick whatever kilogrammes they can get of rotten maize, and putting it in bags so that they can claim that this is the rotten maize that they were talking about.

Suleman insisted that there has never been maize that was rotten and there has never been maize that is unsuitable for human consumption that was just created for unknown reasons.

In his recent statement to Parliament, Minister of Finance Sosten Gwengwe said the World Bank did not pay for 10 000MT of maize valued at about K3 billion because it was rotten and unfit for human consumption.

But in his presentation to the same House later, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale disputed the claim that the maize was rotten, arguing it had only been fumigated and the quantity was not 10 000MT, but 12 304MT.

NBS Bank maize tonnage under collateral was 63 041.27MT and the World Bank helped government to procure about 50 000MT, which is now under the Strategic Grain Reserve the remaining maize was earlier reported to be unfit for human consumption.