Malawi, which has had a bumper crop this year, is to donate 10,000 metric tonnes (mt) of maize to drought-hit Lesotho and Swaziland.

Malawi, which requires around two million mt of maize annually to feed its 12 million-plus people has a surplus of about 1.5 million mt.

"The question is what would we do with the surplus? It is only human and proper then to assist our friends who are in dire need of maize in Lesotho and Swaziland," President Bingu wa Mutharika was quoted as saying in the local media.

Malawi has made an almost complete recovery from a drought in 2005 that left close to five million people in need of food aid. The 2007 maize crop has seen a 22 percent increase over last year's, and is 73 percent higher than the average for the past five years, according to government estimates.

Zimbabwe has bought 400,000mt of maize, of which 114,085 mt had been delivered by the end of July, according to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET).

"Neither the donation to Swaziland and Lesotho nor the sale of maize to Zimbabwe will affect us at all; we have enough maize to feed ourselves till the next season," Mutharika said, amid fears that local people would suffer if the entire maize stockpile was sold, as was the case in 2002 when surplus maize was sold to Kenya.

One of the main reasons for the about turn in Malawi's agricultural sector has been a successful fertiliser subsidy programme, which could have been disrupted when the vote on the 2007/08 budget was postponed indefinitely.

The budget vote was suspended on 24 July after opposition parties - the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), who hold the majority of seats in parliament - refused to debate the budget until a standoff over the defection of their members to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), led by  Mutharika, had been resolved. The government is being funded from a monthly skeleton budget.

The DPP welcomed 60 defectors into its fold, bringing its tally of members in parliament to 80, but in June Malawi's Supreme Court granted powers to the Speaker of Parliament to expel defecting lawmakers, a decision that would affect the strength of the ruling party.

Finance minister Goodall Gondwe has assured Malawians that the government could purchase fertilisers even in the absence of a budget, apparently with resources from the Consolidated Fund, a special account that the government is able to use when in dire financial crisis.

He was quoted in the local media as saying that there was no need for Malawians to panic because government would find resources with which to purchase fertiliser, which is expected to start coming into the country from September.

"We need to start purchasing fertiliser now for the growing season and have to pay half the price upfront to the suppliers," Gondwe said.