President Chakwera has had talks before with UAE Government on fuel arrangements
* The visit is at UAE Government’s own expense, to discuss the G-to-G arrangement and other matters for the long-term fuel security
* It is time for us to take a different approach by transitioning Malawi from the Open Tender System for procuring fuel
* To a G-to-G arrangement that will make our access to fuel more secure through better payment terms and cycles
By Duncan Mlanjira
A Coordinating Committee which President Lazarus Chakwera constituted three weeks ago, to facilitate and execute all aspects of government-to-government (G-to-G) fuel procurement arrangement, have the President’s strict instructions to work with speed to secure the first of G-to-G arrangement.
As a first step in pursuing this, the President has announced that he has accepted an invitation from the President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to visit him in Abu Dhabi next week, at UAE Government’s “own expense, to discuss [G-to-G arrangement] and other matters for the long-term fuel security of our country”.
Chakwera said this in his address to the nation tonight from Kamuzu Palace, to report on the actions that he has been taking to address “three serious challenges we have been facing as a nation at the same time”.
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Fuel scarcity
One of the challenges he highlighted was the scarcity of fuel at pump stations, which he reported that it was due to a 10-day fuel imports suspension that created the fuel queues over the past six weeks.
“As a nation, our monthly fuel demand is at an average of US$50 million per month, which is used by our two main fuel importers, namely the National Oil Company of Malawi (NOCMA) and Petroleum Importers Limited (PIL).
“Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, the rate at which we as a country generate foreign exchange has not kept pace with the growing demand for fuel, making these two importers unable to raise enough forex from the market to import the required volumes of fuel.
“For instance, in the month of August, NOCMA only raised US$23 million of the required forex, while in September and October, that number fell below US$20 million — increasing NOCMA’s debt to suppliers to US$72 million in October and resulting in a 10-day suspension in NOCMA’s access to fuel imports.
“It is this 10-day suspension that created the fuel queues over the past six weeks, forcing many of you to suffer long days and nights at fuel stations, as well as disruptions to your lives, work, and businesses.
The fuel crisis in all pumps across the country that is normalising
“Knowing the frustration you were feeling and the urgency of the situation, at the very start of the crisis I instructed the Treasury to contact our partners at BADEA, who responded by providing a US$50 million revolving credit facility.
“I also engaged the Reserve Bank to ramp up efforts to access more foreign exchange through commercial banks, and it is these interventions that have enabled NOCMA and PIL to bring the fuel that is now being made available in the filling stations, and tonight I must thank you for your patience during the six weeks we have been having meetings in the night to resolve the fuel shortage.”
He reported that the availability of fuel is only a short term solution, saying: “The challenge that NOCMA and PIL face to access forex from the market in the Open Tender System we use as a country to import fuel, has resulted in fuel supply disruptions at different times in the past 20 years.
“And it is time for us to take a different approach,” he said, while announcing that his administration has embarked on the process of transitioning Malawi from the Open Tender System for procuring fuel to a G-to-G arrangement “that will make our access to fuel more secure through better payment terms and cycles”.
Energy Minister Matola, chair of the Coordinating Committee
He further announced that as of three weeks ago, he constituted a Coordinating Committee to facilitate and execute all aspects of this G-to-G policy, which is chaired by the Minister of Energy that include as its members Ministers of Finance, Trade & Industry, Justice, Foreign Affairs, Cabinet Secretary, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, the Attorney General, the Director General of the Procurement Authority, and the chief executive officers of NOCMA and Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA).
“This committee is being supported by a technical committee of technocrats from the respective Ministries, and they all have my instructions to work with speed to secure the first G-to-G agreements for our country.”
Political violence
Chakwera then touched on the thorny issue of political violence, saying he joins three former Heads of State, Dr. Bakili Muluzi, Dr. Joyce Banda and Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika “in condemning some emerging incidents of political violence”.
The masked panga knife-wielding people waiting to pounce on demonstrators
“We have already seen a political party member murdered in Blantyre and demonstrators being intimidated in Lilongwe,” he said. “These things will take our country nowhere, and I am calling on the Malawi Police Service to do its job of investigating every incident of political violence and bringing suspects to book.
“Malawians are peace-loving people and those who use their freedom of political participation or right to demonstrate for violent ends must not be allowed to ruin our reputation as a beacon of democracy in Africa.”
The President also said he received reports that “in some parts of the country, people who are facing food insecurity have been reluctant to register with Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) for the 2025 General Elections.
A senior citizen registering during Phase II
He added that some of the voters “have been feeling reluctant to register because of politicians whose rhetoric is discouraging voters” but fell short of mentioning the politicians involved.
“My own position, because I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, is that voting in our elections is your constitutional right and you should register to vote because you should never surrender your constitutional rights for any reason.
“As for those who have grievances about the registration process, we have the courts to resolve those disputes, but nobody’s grievances should cause you to not register. So please go and register.”
MEC is conducting voter registration exercises across the country, of which two phases have already been completed, with the final phase starting tomorrow in Lilongwe, Mzimba, Mangochi, Chikwawa, Nsanje, and Mwanza.
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Food insecurity
While the country had been grappling with the fuel scarcity, which had angered the citizenry in the past six weeks as it had been never been unprecedented before, the President highlighted that the first and most serious challenge faced is the threat of hunger.
He reminded Malawians that eight months and three days ago, he addressed the nation to declare a State of Disaster in 23 of Malawi’s 28 districts because of the drought that had destroyed the food crops of over a million households across the country.
“I also informed you at the time that the 23 districts whose food crops had been destroyed by the drought disaster were Nsanje, Chikwawa, Blantyre, Thyolo, Mulanje, Phalombe, Chiradzulu, Mwanza, Neno, Zomba, Machinga, Mangochi, Balaka, Lilongwe, Mchinji, Ntcheu, Salima, Dowa, Dedza, Ntchisi, Kasungu, Nkhotakota, and Karonga, which is effectively the whole country of Malawi with the exception of Rumphi, Chitipa, and Likoma Island in the north.
“In terms of figures, I informed you at that time that over 749,000 hectares of maize had been affected by the disaster, representing over 44% of the national crop area, a catastrophic loss which the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) determined to would render 5.7 million Malawians food insecure from October 2024 to March 2025 and require close to MK350 billion in off-budget resources to save so many of our citizens from the looming threat of starvation.
Relief food distribution
“When I realised that this meant we only had six months to raise this money and procure the necessary food supply to address the humanitarian crisis, I immediately had my office develop the National El Niño Response Plan and started engaging our international partners both here and abroad to come to our aid in this hour of desperate need.
Even though I knew that some people in our country would criticise and politicise my travel to the 9 countries I visited in those months, dismissing those trips as useless and wasteful, I also knew that being criticised was a price worth paying in order to find the necessary international support to prevent the far more terrible calamity of 5.7 million Malawians dying of hunger.”
He thus applauded the international partners who responded to his appeals for support, “because without them the hunger situation in this country would have already been the worst in our nation’s history by now”.
These development partners include the World Bank with support of US$92.6 million; the African Development Bank (US$23 million); Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) Limited US$18.2 million); Japan, through the World Food Program US$1.9 million; Ukraine through the World Food Program (19,200 metric tonnes of maize); China (US$64,650 in commodity support; India (1,000 metric tonnes of rice).
“And even here in Malawi, to those of you who have given various donations in cash and in kind — either to the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) or to the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA), I say thank you.
The President during his address
“I wish I could tell you that all this support we have secured from around the world will be enough to enable us to feed everyone who will not have enough food between now and March, but sadly that is not the case.
“Of the MK347 billion target needed to secure enough food for the 5.7 million people in need of assistance, we are still short by MK89 billion. With the assistance we did receive, we have been making food and cash distributions in the affected districts, delivering to each affected household either a 50kg bag of maize or MK70,000 to purchase food from the market.
“And so far, this cash-or-food operation by my Government and the World Food Program is reaching 4.5 million people in 1.1 million households, and I thank God for his mercy to us.
“But that means we still have 1.2 million affected people who are still waiting for their turn to receive support, and so we continue to lobby for
additional support to ensure that the emergency operation reaches everyone who needs help and is sustained all the way to the end of March.”
Nationwide presidential visits
He further explained that in the past two months he had been visiting some affected districts in the Southern and Central regions, which he intends to continue with the Northern Region next week, because he wants those who are facing hunger to hear directly from him “that they should not lose hope, because help is on the way”.
He also has been engaging in internal meetings with officials from the Ministries of Finance, Agriculture, and Local Government “to ensure that there is better coordination between them in reaching those of you who are in need of emergency food relief”.
“I have been doing this because, many of you in the places I have visited, have told me that not enough affected people in your villages are being reached with the food support we are mobilising, and I believe that the efforts we are making to improve coordination will help close the gaps in the coming weeks.
“I must thank you for your patience and understanding with some of the delays in this enormous nationwide operation. Additionally, because of the need to prioritise the food security of those Malawians who don’t have enough to eat, but also due to the fiscal discipline we must exercise to manage our debt situation under the Extended Credit Facility we have with the International Monetary Fund, I have instructed the Minister of Finance to announce additional austerity measures when he appears before Parliament to present the mid-year budget review statement at the end of this week, so I ask for your support of those measures to cut spending.”
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