Malawi works well for the elite with access to forex and inside the system; for the other 80% comprising the rural poor, squeezed between rapidly rising demography and diminishing farm plots, it's a vicious cycle of births, debt, hunger, ill-health and death.
The fuel queues across Malawi's cities tell their own story of an economy and society in distress.
The reason for the petrol shortage is not rocket science. It is also entirely predictable.
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The black-market rate of the Kwacha to the dollar is nearly three times that of the official figure. Thus, fuel at the pump is sold at the official rate, making it less than half the regional norm.
This subsidy, along with other price distortions, is calculated to be costing the Malawian treasury some $7-million per day, this money being funded by off-the-books special government-to-government relationships with the likes of Oman, Kuwait, and China, along with loans and treasury bills.
The cost of the latter is yet to be felt, though with bills issued at a 30% yield, it's likely to be painful to the point of default. The so-called country-to-country deals are mooted to involve the mortgaging of mineral assets.
As the country runs dry of money and scurries about for cash, so does petrol, even if it comes from dodgy discounted sources.
Malawi remains, as a result of years of poor governance and policy, firmly stuck in the bottom five poorest countries worldwide, its per capita income...
