More Malawians slide into poverty

More Malawians slid into poverty in the past 20 years with access to basic resources becoming more challenging, a new Afrobarometer report has established.

In its latest survey results released on Monday evening titled ‘Under One Government After Another, More and More Malawians Live in Poverty’, Afrobarometer said just 15 percent of Malawians approve the Tonse Alliance administration’s efforts to reduce poverty. It said the rating is the worst in the past 20 years under six administrations.

Covering the period between 2003 and 2022, the report stated that it was only during the first term of former president Bingu wa Mutharika that the anti-poverty fight got the highest approval ratings.

Reads the report: “Over the period 2008-2022, the government received its best ratings during Bingu wa Mutharika’s first term. In 2008, six in 10 Malawians [about 60 percent] said the government was doing ‘fairly well’ or ‘very well’ at improving poor people’s living standards.

“Approval has been dropping steeply since then, reaching 39 percent in 2012 [at the end of Bingu’s second term] and 2014 [after Joyce Banda’s term], then down to 22 percent in 2017 [during the Peter Mutharika administration].

“After a modest rebound to 27 percent in 2019 [still under Peter Mutharika], it dropped again, to 15 percent in 2022, after Chakwera’s first 21 months in office.”

The report further states that access to basic resources has been challenging amongst the majority Malawians.

“Substantial numbers of people report frequently going without enough food [35 percent], medical care or medicines [34 percent], cooking fuel [29 percent] and clean water [24 percent],” the report compiled by researchers Maria Mkwawira Chunga and Maxton Tsoka, reads.

The report further states that all of these reported shortages have been increasing over the past decade.

The Afrobarometer team concludes that almost all governments have failed to ensure that the citizens have access to a cash income which has been affecting people’s ability to meet all their basic needs.

Reacting to the report, National Planning Commission spokesperson Thom Khanje said the Malawi 2063, the country’s long-term development strategy. was developed within the context of all the economic and social realities in the country.

He said: “The figures as presented in the report are, therefore, not new at all to the MW2063 as they were part of statistics that informed its formulation.”

On his part, Leader of opposition in Parliament Kondwani Nankhumwa said he was not surprised by the outcome of the survey.

Minister of Information and Digitisation Gospel Kazako had not responded to our questionnaire as we went for press.

Afrobarometer is a pan-African, nonpartisan research network that provides data on African experiences.

Its team Malawi, led by the Centre for Social Research at the University of Malawi, interviewed 1 200 adult Malawians in February 2022 as part of its survey evaluating democracy, governance and quality of life.