Global Fund for Malaria has already expressed intention of supporting Tanzania’s campaign against malaria by supplying 1.6million mosquito bed nets this year.
If there were no snags in between, the GF deal will have a multiple effects to the country’s economy as the consignment of mosquito nets would have been produced by local manufacturers.
Arusha-based, A-to-Z Textiles Mills is one of mosquito nets manufacturer in Tanzania and East African region which is to benefit from the lucrative deal.
Astonishingly, just as the Global Fund wants to place orders of nearly 2 million nets for Tanzania alone, local textile manufacturers capable of producing them are reported to be laying down nearly 2500 workers due to ‘slowing business.’
Executive Director of the Arusha-Based, A-to-Z Textiles Mills, Anuj Shah said while his company applies the World Health Organization (WHO) approved standards in manufacturing their ‘Olyset,’ nets using ‘Japanese Technology,’ pricing them competitively is what will attract Global Fund to place orders and right now taxes are hurting their heads.
Shah pointed out that from last year; the nets were classified as ‘Exempt Supply,’ which means prices had to escalate due to taxation of raw material.
“With bed nets manufacturing every input need to be imported; materials, chemicals and equipment, and when these get taxed, we are compelled to market our products at higher prices than competitors,” he maintained.
The A-to-Z Textiles of Arusha is among the 14 internationally approved suppliers of bed nets as per WHO requirements and this year, the Global Fund has pledge 1.6 million nets for Tanzania.
“If our prices were lower, then Arusha could have been given the tender to produce and supply the million bed nets for Global Fund, but GF always float tender to all manufacturers and pick those with cheaper pricing and taxes here may cause us to lose the tender,” lamented Shah.
When the former President Jakaya Kikwete chaired the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), he had proposed all mosquito nets to be Zero rated, something which helped the local textiles industry to get their tax refunds from imported raw materials thus making them to be priced lower and competitively in global markets.
And when Mosquito nets were Zero Rated, the Arusha based textile firm attracted a global order of 24 million Long-Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets but when the country later on classified them as ‘Exempt Supplies,’ thus rising production costs, Global Fund started looking elsewhere, diverting orders to Vietnamese suppliers.
Tanzania’s textile industry which is suffering massive backlash from cheap bed-nets imports and already two such factories based in Arusha has laid off nearly 2500 workers, with many more lined up to be offloaded.
The Vice President of Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association of Tanzania (TEGAMAT), Sylvester Kazi said here that two of the leading factories, the A-to-Z Textiles Mills of Kisongo as well as the Sun-Flag (Tanzania) Limited of Njiro are the victims of the sub-standard mosquito nets sold cheaply in the streets.
Currently, consignments of alleged, ‘Insecticide Treated Nets,’ labelled as produced by HM Textile Net are flooding the local markets especially Kariakoo section of Dar es Salaam with some infiltrating into Arusha and other major cities of the country, being sold cheaply at 3,000/- per piece while those manufactured by local firms retail at 10,000/-.
On the packaging there are words ‘Made in China’ though in reality, the HM Textiles is a factory operating from Pakistan and Bangladesh, which raises concern that the nets could be counterfeits.
As for the alleged ‘insecticide treated net’ claims, we contacted the Tropical Pesticide Research Institute (TPRI) based in Ngaramtoni outside Arusha City, which is the state facility responsible for regulating all chemicals used in the country to see if the mosquito nets have been impregnated by approved insecticides.
Dr Elikana Lekei is the registrar of pesticides and head of the pesticides and environmental management at TPRI who said: “We need to run samples of the nets into out testing laboratories to see if they contain insecticide as claimed.”
According to Dr Lekei, the nets in question however do not contain any seal of approval from either TPRI or the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) which means, Tanzanians are using them at their own risk. “Tanzania has approved Parathyroid based Chemicals for ITNs,” he said.
The A-to-Z Textiles Mills’ Chief Executive Officer, Anuj Shah said of late sales of bed nets have dropped such that his company was compelled to lay off 2000 workers. “We had 10,000 employees but now we are left with 8000, but this figure may drop even further if the situation does not stabilize,” he said.
A-to-Z through its Joint Venture with Japan’s Sumitomo Chemicals, produces the famed ‘Olyset’ branded Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets (LLIN) approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Global Fund for Malaria.
The other firm, Sun-Flag (T) Limited operating from Njiro, was recently forced to cut down its employment force by 10 per cent after dropping off 300 workers out of its 3000 employees, due to stagnant sales of bed nets.
According to the Sun-Flag Executive Director, Ajay Shah the factory has a stock of 90,000 unsold bed nets valued at over 600m/- and they have no idea how to recover the production costs if the consignment remains stagnant.
Seven years ago, the removal of taxes and tariffs on insecticide treated nets (ITNs) was considered one of the easiest resolutions for most countries to implement among the targets agreed upon at the African Summit on Roll Back Malaria in Abuja, Nigeria, on April 25, 2000.
However, seven years later, 24 of the 39 Abuja signatories continue to impose taxes and tariffs on this life-saving tool. Taxes and tariffs significantly increase the price of an insecticide treated net, reduce affordability, and discourage the commercial sector from importing insecticide treated net products.
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