* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Taongo Sabola was a participant in our Financial and Economic Reporting course in Johannesburg in June.
Malawi’s President Joyce Banda may have done enough to please development partners to reopen aid taps, but she remains far from convincing the young and energetic Malawians who keep fleeing the country and its escalating cost of living..
A recent visit to the Department of Immigration head offices in Blantyre revealed long queues of passport seekers, most of them between the ages of 20 and 35, trying to get the document which, they believe, will help them escape the rot.
Most youths interviewed indicated that they wanted to travel to South Africa, Ireland and Mozambique where, they believe, life is softer and jobs are easy to come by.
“What do you do when you have no job and consumer prices keep rising? Do you stand there and watch? The rules of the game are simple, if you can’t stand the heat you move out of the kitchen,” said Amon Banda of Chiradzulu.
Since taking over the reins on April 7 following the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika, Banda has implemented measures for the ‘donor-fearing’ Sub-Saharan African nation to get back on good terms with development partners.
A month after taking over, Banda devalued and floated the Malawi Kwacha in a desperate attempt to win back the support of the IMF, a development that sent consumer prices soaring. The kwacha now hovers around K285 per dollar compared to K168 in April.
Banda’s administration also adopted an Automatic Fuel Pricing Mechanism as recommended by donors, fuelling an upsurge in the price of petrol, which rose from K380 ($1.35) to K490 ($1.72) before coming down to K441($1.55).
The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) has also increased the bank rate from 13 to 21 percent, a development which has triggered commercial banks to hike lending rates from 17 percent in April to around 33 percent.
Malawians interviewed on the streets of Hillbrow, a Johannesburg district with a high number of immigrants, this week indicated that it is easy to get temporary jobs, for instance as shop assistants or hotel workers, in South Africa.
“Honestly, Malawi is not the best place for the young and unemployed. We better come here and do something than rot doing noting in Blantyre.
“They may not be the best jobs but at least we get a little something. The little we have helps us to earn a living and of course send something back home,” said Yusuf Milanzie, who earns an average of R100 (about K3,300) a day.
Finance Minister Ken Lipenga’s 2012/13 national budget, presented in June, favours the private sector and the government believes the resuscitation of industry will help bring back jobs.
Lipenga, however, said recently he was unsure how many jobs the financial plan may hatch, arguing it would depend on how the private sector took advantage of provisions in the budget to create employment.
Reserve Bank governor Charles Chuka told a recent business dinner in Blantyre that recovery would depend on the patience of the local man on the street and the current administration’s political will to implement the budget as passed.
Banda has indicated that the bedridden economy needs 18 months and $1billion to recover from its mess.
