Malawi's energy sector is grappling with an awkward contradiction. While motorists queue at petrol stations, the state-owned National Oil Company of Malawi (Nocma) is pressing ahead with plans to double its strategic fuel storage capacity, from 60 million to 120 million litres.
Existing reserves at Matindi in Blantyre, Kanengo in Lilongwe and Sonda in Mzuzu already exceed what the country can reliably keep full.
A $9.7 million contract for the Mzuzu expansion has been awarded to Optech Engineering and Einstein Construction, with tenders for Blantyre and Lilongwe under way.
Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn
Energy minister Jean Mathanga has defended the project as essential to national supply security, telling the podcast No Excuses MW that government was "working so hard to ensure that we have enough fuel for our consumption."
In theory, Malawi's roughly two million litres of daily fuel consumption should leave a comfortable 30-day buffer. In practice, chronic foreign currency shortages routinely leave reserves depleted.
That gap between theory and practice is precisely what troubles the scheme's critics.
Economist Velli Nyirongo, writing from Scotland, put it succinctly: Malawi is "considering doubling our fuel storage capacity at precisely the time when we struggle to secure enough foreign exchange to keep existing fuel supplies flowing."
His diagnosis is blunt -- the problem is financial, not structural, and "infrastructure should follow the constraint, not distract from it."
Consumer rights advocate Wazamazama Katatu goes further, arguing that pouring money into long-term infrastructure while ordinary Malawians face daily fuel shortages risks looking tone-deaf.
The concern is sharpened by Malawi's precarious public finances: debt above 90% of GDP, persistent budget deficits, some K3.2 trillion in outstanding compensation liabilities, and statutory obligations consuming nearly all domestic revenue.
The underlying question, then, is one of sequencing. Bigger tanks may well serve Malawi's long-term energy security.
But without the foreign exchange to keep them filled, critics warn the country risks investing heavily in capacity it cannot yet use -- a solution addressing the wrong end of the problem.
