Jets For Food

Something big happened in Malawi, a small African country. It sold the $22m jet that had been purchased by former president Bingu wa Mutharika, for $15m to Virgin Islands company, Bohnoc Enterprise Ltd, and will use the money for food.”It was a collective government decision that the money realized from the sale of the jet will be used to purchase maize locally and some for legume production,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance. Ten percent of the country’s 13 million people face food shortages. President Joyce Banda, who instituted many cost cutting measures since taking office last year, decided to sell the jet given that it takes $300,000 a year to run it and use commercial airlines instead. Britain, one of Malawi’s most important donors had reduced aid after the 14-passenger aircraft was purchased. What’s also noteworthy is that this story was reported by Aljazeera—maybe they are doing what they said they would and report news that is not celebrity based.