Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika Monday threatened exploitative tobacco buyers with expulsion from the country and arrests if they were not ready to buy Malawi's main foreign exchange earner, tobacco, at prices fixed by his government.

"This year the minimum price for low quality tobacco is 1.10 U. S. dollars (per kg) while for top grade tobacco is 1.70 dollars. This means you can negotiate any prices above that but you must not allow the buyers to give you less those prices," said Mutharika.

The Malawi leader made the strong-worded remarks in the capital Lilongwe when he inaugurated the 2006 marketing season of the country's most important crop, tobacco, which is dubbed as "Malawi 's Green Gold."

The visibly angry Mutharika added that his government, in power for the past two years, would not allow someone from outside Malawi to dictate tobacco prices in the country as had been the case in the past years.

"Poor small-holder farmers in Malawi have remained poor because they are cheated by an international cartel that connives to buy our tobacco at exploitative prices and yet they sell the same tobacco at huge profits in their countries," he said.

The economist-turned-politician president warned that his government was this year ready to expel exploitative tobacco buyers adding: "If you dare to threaten me some of you will find yourselves in handcuffs."

President Mutharika therefore announced that his government had from this year designated tobacco and Malawi's other two major foreign exchange earners, tea and cotton, as the country's strategic commodities whose minimum prices would be fixed by government.

"If you call me a dictator so be it! I would rather be called a dictator while protecting my people! I am not doing this for political reasons but I am concerned with the welfare of my people, " he said.

Mutharika's tough talk comes amid the background alleging that Malawi's only two tobacco buying companies had for a long time been conniving to fix tobacco prices, an allegation that was substantiated by an investigation conducted by renowned British lawyer Clive Stanbrook last year.

Tobacco alone fetches up to 160 million dollars or about 70 percent of Malawi's total foreign exchange every year and it contributes 30 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product ( GDP), 25 percent of the country's tax earnings and over 70 percent of Malawians are directly or indirectly employed by the tobacco industry.

Malawi presently has over 30,000 smallholder farmers involved in tobacco production after the World Bank asked government to liberalize tobacco growing in the 1980s which was heavily regulated.

The impoverished southern African country is the world's largest exporter of burley tobacco, a thin-leafed brand that is dried in the open air.

Malawi's official tobacco regulatory body, the Tobacco Control Commission, stated recently that the country would be expected to produce 156,500 tons of tobacco this year, up from 143,400 tons in 2005.

In the past years, farmers have persistently rioted and interrupted tobacco sales demanding better prices, which sometimes went as low as 60 U.S. cents per kg.

Agricultural experts have observed that a Malawian farmer spends at least 1.20 dollars to produce one kg of tobacco while the average price in 2005 was 90 cents per kg.

Source: Xinhua