Vice-President Saulos Chilima has expressed satisfaction with Witimba-Kaseghe Cooperative of Chitipa District which is producing cooking oil.

Chilima, who is on tour of the North to review the progress of reforms, yesterday visited the cooperative before proceeding to Karonga.

Chilima admires cooking oil produced by the cooperative

Looking excited, he said time had come to invest in local industry.

Chilima said the country was wasting foreign exchange on importation of cooking oil instead of empowering local production.

He said: “We should be inviting other willing investors to come and partner with these cooperatives so that we can grow this local industry to create jobs and get more taxes.

“They need to begin to supply beyond the borders of Chitipa.

“It’s a good story from Chitipa and we need to boost their capacity. Personally I will engage other potential investors to look at this cooperative.”

Witimba-Kaseghe Cooperative chairperson Cryston Kabaghe said they were trying hard to ensure that the cooperative grows.

He said: “We bought a machine LY 100 and a filter in Lilongwe in 2020 but the challenge is bottles as we cannot get them from anywhere.”

Kabaghe said they produce 2 000 litres per year because productiontakes place only raw materials are available.

“We have started buying sunflower and we have already invested about K4million,” he said.

Cooking oil shortage recently hit the local market, a development oil producing companies have attributed to lack of forex to import raw materials and the interruption of supply chain due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

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