by Nurat Uthman
Crowds were queuing at petrol stations on Friday in Malawi after fuel rationing was imposed this week as a lack of foreign exchange interrupted supplies.
The Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) said restrictions would affect specific petrol stations and help prevent hoarding and black-market sales.
The measures were meant to “ensure fair access to fuel across Malawi,” MERA chief executive Henry Kachaje said Wednesday, but many residents and businesses are feeling the pinch.
“Inflation has surged, and with the onset of the rainy season, farmers are unable to access or transport fertilizer, placing the nation’s food security at severe risk,” said the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC), a local advocacy group.
The lack of fuel has increased costs of transportation, with knock-on increases for prices of essential goods and food in a country where 70 per cent of people live in extreme poverty.
Outside a petrol station in the capital Lilongwe on Friday, truck driver Mustafa Nankwenya told AFP he had spent four days searching for diesel for his 10-tonne truck.
“I am really under pressure right now,” he said, showing his vehicle loaded with medical supplies.
He said he was transporting anti-retroviral drugs to government health facilities in the town of Mangochi, 350 kilometres (about 210 miles) away.
Government spokesman Moses Kunkuyu told AFP that the main cause of the crisis was the unavailability of foreign exchange to pay for $75 million owed to suppliers of the commodity.
The problem is now being fixed, he said.
“As of the past two days, almost $70 million has been paid,” Kunkuyu said, adding that there were still some issues with the loading and transporting of fuel from ports in Tanzania and Mozambique.
Motorist Godfrey Chisusu said the government was “taking forever” to resolve the crisis.
“If they have managed to obtain forex now, it means they should have fixed it a long time ago but they didn’t,” he said.
The Human Rights Defenders Coalition said the nation deserved to know “when this crisis will end.”
“They assured Malawians that the crisis would last only a week, yet we are now entering the fifth week, with no relief in sight,” the group said in the statement.
