Consumers lament economic environment
Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) says the current economic environment coupled with forex shortages and scarcity of essential commodities such as fuel and electricity is affecting people’s wellbeing, calling on government to act quickly on fixing the problems.
According to Cama executive director John Kapito, prices of basic commodities like sugar, bread, cooking oil, flour and vegetables, among others, have gone beyond the reach of many Malawians because of the forex shortages as well as the scarcity of fuel and inadequate power supply
In a statement made available to Business News, Kapito said consumers are going through one of the highest cost of living due to government’s failure to provide essential items and resources to it’s citizenry.
He said: “We are appealing to the government to outline strategies to end these economic and social challenges.
“Government cannot pretend that the economy is doing well and remain quite while Malawians are struggling and negatively affected by these economic challenges. Government needs to assure and give confidence to Malawians about the short-term strategies that it is implementing, if any, in order to end these challenges.”
Kapito argued that Malawians have been patient for a long time pointing out that, meanwhile, the economy continues to get worse with no sign of recovery.
“Malawians are equally frustrated to hear that government is talking again about a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) Financial Support Programme, which is a doubtful programme considering that the first application was rejected. In any case, an IMF Programme will economically disadvantage the poor as it comes with expensive and punitive conditions such as devaluation which worsen poverty among people,” he said.
Malawi has been experiencing economic turbulences, including fuel supply shortages over the last two months owing to inadequate forex to purchase the commodity.
Such a development coming a time the country is also experiencing inadequate power supply has, on the other hand, put businesses at a standstill and forced other to raise prices of their commodities to remain afloat.
Meanwhile, Malawi’s headline inflation has been on the rise, standing at 25.9 percent as of September, triggered by a rise in food and non-food prices.
National Statistical Office (NSO) figures published last month show that during the same period last year, inflation was recorded at 8.4 percent.
This means prices of goods and services during the period under review quickened compared to the same period last year.
Minister of Information and Digitilisation Gospel Kazako is however on record as having said government has a plan to resolve the challenges and that it was unfortunate that some people do not seem to understand the gravity of the issues facing the country.
