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Govt completes GM guidelines

[Zambia] Levy Mwanawasa, MMD president. ZAMNET
Withholding IMF funds could impact on service delivery
The Zambian government has completed its proposed guidelines on genetically modified (GM) food and expects to submit these to cabinet later in January, Abel Chambeshi, Minister of Science and Technology told IRIN on Tuesday. The guidelines, which are expected to fill a legislative void on the controversial subject, were drawn up after President Levy Mwanawasa banned the import of GM food aid last year, calling it "poison". The ban and the subsequent order to withdraw in-country stocks left food relief agencies cutting rations and scrambling to find alternate food sources for about 2.9 million people. "We've done all the preliminary work and and as ministers have completed all the requirements. There may be a few amendments but the guidelines will be presented to Cabinet. It will then become a parliamentary bill and will then become law," Chambeshi said. He would not elaborate on the contents of the report but said parliament would reconvene towards the end of January and it was hoped that a bill would be in place by February. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) has received a permit to remove 10,000 mt of the total 15,000 mt GM stocks it had in Zambia to Malawi. "We are in the process of bringing the smaller quantities from the districts to Lusaka so that they can be fumigated before being transported," David Rhody, WFP emergency coordinator in Zambia said. "We have found replacement stocks from other donors and cash contributions but because the process was slow, October, November and December were difficult months," he said. "However, January, February and March, which are the critical months, have a reasonably good pipeline [due to stocks expected to arrive from South Africa and Tanzania]," he said. The stocks would be a welcome relief in Malawi where WFP has increased its list of people in need from 2.3 million to 2.8 million for this month. Malawi, like most Southern African countries is also concerned about GM food but has decided to allow distribution if it is milled. WFP spokesman Abdelgadi Musallam said that only GM relief food that is milled would be distributed in January, the planting season. The government had helped by paying the Kwacha 10 million (US $117,500) needed to convert existing GM grain stocks to flour while WFP took care of the rebagging. WFP still needs US $190 million out of a total donor appeal of US $507 million to provide relief food for almost 14 million people in six countries in Southern Africa.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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