En kombination af onder har bragt mange malawianere tæt på tiggerstaven
BLANTYRE, 19 December 2011 (IRIN): Devaluation, fuel shortages and economic mismanagement have conspired to push prices of staple food (grundnæringsmidler) to “alarming levels” in urban areas of Malawi.
Here where even catching a bus to work has become an unaffordable luxury for many, according to residents and analysts.
– At the moment, we are only concentrating on finding enough money for food and water, said father-of-four Francis Tambula, who walks 7 km every day from his home in Blantyre’s Ndirande township to his shop in the Limbe trading centre because paying for public transport would consume half of his income.
– We stopped having breakfast because we cannot manage to buy sugar and bread, he told IRIN.
Since Malawi started experiencing severe shortages of fuel and foreign exchange currency earlier this year, soap, beans, dry fish, bread, sugar and cooking oil (madolie) have become luxuries for Tambula’s family, and even affording maize, Malawi’s staple food, has become a struggle.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), which monitors trends in staple food prices in countries vulnerable to food insecurity, noted that in southern Malawi, maize prices rose by 22 percent in September and a further 15 percent in October.
According to a cost-of-living survey released every month by local NGO the Centre for Social Concern (CFSC), the price of maize increased by an average of 11,7 percent during October in the country’s four main urban centres (Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Blantyre and Zomba).
“The fact that the staple food is recording alarming price increase is indicative of hard times ahead,” noted CFSC’s researchers in a 15 November press release.
“It is a wake-up call to government and other stakeholders… to monitor the situation closely for timely interventions as the upcoming lean season might be more than what the country might have known in previous years.”
Near breaking point
In an attempt to address Malawi’s thriving black market trade in US dollars, which has contributed to the crippling shortage of foreign exchange, the kwacha (den lokale møntfod) was devalued by 10 percent in August, but according to the CFSC, income levels have remained stagnant and the cost of goods and services has continued to climb.
Collen Kaluwa, an economics professor at the University of Malawi, said the poor Southern african country’s economic crisis had stretched the resources of its city dwellers to breaking point.
– The shortage of fuel has caused hiccups in transportation, making commodities expensive. Forex shortages (mangel på udenlandsk valuta) mean that manufacturing companies are not able to source sufficient inputs for production, hence we are bound to have shortages of commodities in shops and this is also pushing prices up, he explained.
Kaluwa agreed with recommendations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Malawi’s central reserve bank needs to further devalue the kwacha if it is to address the foreign exchange shortage.
Economic mismanagement?
Læs videre på http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94498
Se også hvordan det er gået Malawis fødevareproducerende småbønder
på http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93954
