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- 28/6/02
Setback
for Third Term Campaign
(AllAfrica report)
28/6/02
Inside
Famished Malawi (BBC
report)
9/5/02 The story told by a 17
year old AIDS orphan from Malawi
- NEW YORK -- As the world's
governments began a three-day debate yesterday
about the fate of children, a young man, Wisdom
Murowa, took a seat in the hallway outside the
United Nations General Assembly and quietly told
his terrible story. "At first, nobody would tell
me why everyone in my family was going away and
dying," the clear-eyed young man said. Mr.
Murowa is 17, and as a child in Malawi he found
himself living the catastrophe that threatens to
reverse decades of progress in children's living
conditions. When he was 8, his father died of a
mysterious illness. Two years later, his closest
sister died, then three years later, his mother.
He was left alone with his younger sister, no
parents and no source of income and no food in
one of the world's poorest countries. "I asked
my cousins and uncles what was happening, and
they would not tell me what was killing my
family. They were hiding it from me. But I had
to know because everyone in my town was dying,
all my friends and relatives. I soon knew that
it had to be AIDS and that I was another
orphan." Mr. Murowa is one of so many AIDS
orphans they could form their own nation, a
nation that has appeared almost overnight. Their
number has surpassed 10 million and threatens to
grow larger than the population of Canada. A
decade ago, even the most pessimistic observers
did not predict this. In the 12 years since the
UN last assessed the state of the world's
children, almost everything has improved:
mortality rates, education, sanitation, labour
laws, equality of opportunity for boys and girls
and less exploitation. One terrible exception
remains: the surging population of AIDS orphans.
In 1990, there were just over one million
children made orphans by AIDS. statistics
released by the UN say the number has jumped to
10.4 million and is expected to double by 2010.
This vast nation of children has become the
single biggest challenge to the world's
resources of aid. At yesterday's General
Assembly meeting, as world leaders boasted of
the eradication of polio, the curbing of land
mines and reductions in child labour, Malawian
Vice-President Justin Malewezi spoke of the
disaster. "The HIV-AIDS pandemic will kill more
people in Africa than all the casualties of all
the wars of the 20th century combined," he said.
"We need resources commensurate with the scale
of disaster threatening our future." Mr. Murowa
is one of the lucky ones: He and his sister were
taken in by his uncle, a sugar-plantation
supervisor, who is rearing 14 orphaned children
of relatives on an income of a few hundred
dollars a year. Their living is meagre but not
as dire as that faced by most African AIDS
orphans. "There are very few children going to
school in my town any more," Mr. Murowa said.
"We have lost most of our teachers to AIDS, and
the students have had to stop attending to care
for their families. Many of my old classmates
are working as beggars or prostitutes because if
your family has died of AIDS, nobody wants to
take you in." Indeed, the crisis of AIDS is not
simply medical. The orphans are ostracized in
places such as Malawi, where superstition and
poor education have led even uninfected
relatives of AIDS victims to be shunned and
turned into untouchables. "Things are getting
worse," Mr. Murowa said. "People don't
understand about AIDS in my country, and the
orphans can't even survive as beggars. It has
affected everybody I know."
-
- 4/5/02 Elephants, Hippos Destroy
Malawi Crops
- Herds of rampaging elephants and
hippos have devastated 10,000 hectares of
cropland in southern Malawi, a country already
suffering through a severe food crisis. A member
of parliament from the region, Mekkie Mtewa,
says the animals have wiped out the crops of
entire villages in the resort district of
Mangochi, 200 kilometers east of the commercial
capital, Blantyre. The Associated Press reports
some villagers have been trampled to death by
the animals or killed when elephants toppled
their houses with them inside. Wildlife
officials say the elephants and hippos were
driven into Malawi by severe flooding in
neighboring Mozambique. Last week, the U.N.
World Food Program warned there will be a
disaster in southern Africa if millions of
dollars in emergency food aid does not reach
Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The agency says the
situation is particularly dire in Malawi, where
hundreds of people have already died of
starvation and related illnesses.
- 26/4/02 Malawi: a survey of the
debt and poverty situation
- Weighed down by a critical food
shortage, limited access to land, unemployment
and poor education and health services, Malawi
is one of the world's poorest its dismal record,
the government this week launched a Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) - a first step
to gain unqualified relief on its US $2.5
billion foreign debt under the controversial
Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC)
initiative. In setting out the PRSP, a blueprint
expected to guide the country's programme over
the next one year, President Bakili Muluzi said
poverty reduction was the
- central focus of his
government's economic policy. But he cautioned
that experience had shown that past development
efforts had achieved too little because the
government and the donors had tried to do too
much. This time it was up to Malawians to help
themselves. Poverty in Malawi is widespread and
severe. Based on 1998 Integrated Household
Survey (IHS) consumption data 65.3 percent of
the country's 10-million population - or roughly
6.3 million people - are poor. Their consumption
of basic needs (both food and non-food), is
below the minimum level estimated at US 13 cents
per day in 1998, and it is believed that 2.8
million people live in dire poverty. About 52
percent of the poor are female, and females head
around 25 percent of households. The literacy
rate stands at 58 percent. Education attainment,
defined as completion of Standard 8, stands at
only 11.2 percent of adults aged 25 years and
above, and only 6.2 percent for women. Life
expectancy at birth dropped from 43 years in
1996 to 39 years in 2000. Infant and under-five
mortality rates were estimated to be 104 and 189
deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively. In
1998, Malawi paid out US 39 cents in debt
service for every US $1 received in aid grants.
According to the debt cancellation lobby group
Jubilee 2000, as a percentage of economic
output, spending on debt service was twice the
amount spent on health. The bulk of Malawi's
debt is owed to the World Bank. The long and
winding road to achieving measurable poverty
reduction will not be easy, analysts warn. For a
start, the government suffers from persistent
budget over expenditures. The president has
often ignored calls to trim his bloated cabinet
of 39 ministers. Each cabinet minister drives
the latest Mercedes saloon or an expensive 4x4.
In 1994, one of the first actions of Muluzi's
new government was to introduce universal
primary education and increase health and
education spending by 50 percent to US $148
million a year. "But under pressure from the IMF
and World Bank to curb government expenditure,
the health and education budget by 1999/2000 had
been cut back to under US $100 million," Jubilee
2000 noted. Although 24 countries world-wide
have reached the decision point under the HIPC
initiative, only four countries - Bolivia,
Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda - have qualified
for unconditional debt relief since it was
initiated by the IMF and World Bank in 1996. The
HIPC record has been criticised for taking too
long and not cancelling enough debt. Preparing a
comprehensive and fully participatory PRSP is
one of the conditions for a country to reach
completion point. Malawi reached completion
point in December 2000 after an "interim" PRSP -
that was criticised for not properly involving
civil society - and qualified for debt relief of
US $40 million. Having completed the PRSP,
Malawi must satisfactorily implement it under
IMF and World Bank monitoring. "At that stage
Malawi will be eligible for up to and above US
$80 million of debt forgiveness annually for an
accumulated 20 year-period. These will not be
new and additional extra funds but rather funds
within the same national budget released from
debt servicing, and now available for
development work-related poverty reduction,"
said Finance Minister Friday Jumbe. Jumbe,
appointed finance minister two months ago, had
earlier described the government budget as "left
with no meat but bare bones". He was quick to
add that the Malawi PRSP will not work if the
international community did not increase
concessional aid aligned to national strategies,
open up its markets to developing country
exports, and phase out trade-distorting
subsidies. Jubilee 2000 argues that the debt
relief granted to Malawi is not enough to make
the country's debt burden "sustainable" - the
purpose of the HIPC process. Debt is considered
sustainable if the net present value is less
than 150 percent of export earnings. Malawi's
debt will only fall below 150 percent of exports
in 2007, "and that is based on very optimistic
estimates of growth in export earnings", the
lobby group warned. Malawi launches its war on
poverty at a time when the country is facing a
severe food shortage. The government declared a
state of disaster in February, when over 500
people had reportedly died from hunger-related
diseases, and seven million had run out
- of food. The country is also
severely affected by the spread of HIV and AIDS.
"There are a host of other reasons why
implementation of the PRSP will be challenging.
HIV/AIDS alone has the potential to seriously
derail the wider objectives of the PRSP and must
be counted as a major risk ... perhaps the major
risk," observed Mike Wood, head of Britain's
Department for International Development (DFID)
in Malawi.
19/4/02 Almost 1000 Cholera
Deaths Reported
- Almost 1,000 people have died
from cholera in Malawi since November and about
33,000 infections have been reported up to
mid-April, the national health department told
IRIN on Friday. Most cases were in the central
region, which saw 592 people die and 16,318
people infected, Dr Habib Somanje, director of
preventive health services said. In the southern
region, 364 people died and 16,257 were
infected, while the north was least affected,
with 30 deaths and 362 reported cases. "This is
the worst outbreak in the past 10 years," he
said, adding that the outbreak affected men,
women and children equally. The causes of the
latest outbreak were not yet clear, but the
department was mobilising support from churches,
traditional leaders and political organisations,
he said. In addition, the health department had
been caught off guard with the high number of
infections and did not have enough drugs or
rehydration materials, Somanje added. He also
appealed to people to practise good hygiene to
beat the epidemic. World Health Organisation
(WHO) representative Ben Chandyamba said United
Nations agencies would next week begin an
assessment of the current food crisis and would
include the social aspect in their study.
Chandyamba said it was possible that the cholera
outbreak could also be linked to starving people
in peri-urban areas eating whatever they could
find to survive. "They are eating anything you
can think of," said Chandyamba. Meanwhile,
Channel Africa reported on Friday that Britain
would provide US $6 million in emergency food
aid to the country, which is suffering its worst
hunger crisis in 50 years. The British High
Commission in Blantyre was quoted as saying that
35,000 poor families in the central Salima and
Mchinji districts would benefit from the aid
over the next two months. Britain, Malawi's
former colonial power and largest aid donor, was
withholding the first tranche of a US $122
million dollar aid package to Malawi pending
improved fiscal discipline, the report
said.
-
- 8/4/02 Villagers Overwhelm Food
Supplies, Eat Wild Seeds
- Blantyre
- Villagers in Malawi, facing
severe famine due to floods and drought, are
eating wild seeds as a supplement to their
diminishing stock of maize. Action by Churches
Together ACT - member Evangelical Lutheran
Development Programme ELDP has already started
distributing food aid in some of the most
affected districts. But the demand is much
bigger than the stock. Charles Machado, the man
in charge of Mapira's Maize Mill in Phalombe, a
small town in South Eastern Malawi, is far from
happy with business these days. In fact, he had
to dismiss half of his four employees lately
because of the famine in Malawi. "Normally we
have up to 200 customers every day. Now, the
number has dropped alarmingly to 40 to 50.
People have simply run out of maize. They are
bringing smaller and smaller portions of maize
to the mills by the day," he says. In late
March, however, there were frequent rains in
Phalombe district. The common perception of
famine related to brown and dusty colours was
disturbed. In Malawi these days the fields are
green. And normally green means fertility. But
there is more to it than meets the eye. If one
goes inside a maize field it is quite obvious
that the maize plants have not developed a
reasonably size of combs if any at all. The
rains suddenly stopped in the middle of the
season, affecting the crops severely. The
phrase, Green Hunger, is adequate to the
situation for Malawians living in the rural
areas. Jacob Mtsunji, project officer with ELDP,
shows how poor the crop is. Lots of maize plants
have turned brown before time, yielding combs
with less than 50 percent of the normal size,
the rest are about two meters high, but without
any combs at all. "They are completely useless,
nothing will come out of this," he says. In the
small village Phaloni in Phalombe district, the
local farmers are eager to show the kind of
local weed most of the villagers are forced to
eat these days: Small seeds with very little
nutritious value at all. But this is better than
nothing. In Phaloni already 15 to 20 people have
died from hunger, he claims. They are mostly old
people and small children. One of the farmers
says that his mother passed away recently - from
hunger. ACT-member ELDP is distributing food aid
in Phaloni. Together with the local authorities
ELDP has identified the most needy people. They
line up patiently to get their share of the
goods brought to them by the ELDP-truck. They
come from eight small villages, and they have
already registered for food aid. They comprise
the strongest members among the around 1,000
families in the villages. They are the few ones
to have enough strength to come to the food
distribution centre and carry the food rations
back to the family. ELDP has distributed 12.5
tonnes of maize flour, two tonnes of beans, 2.5
tonnes of likuni phala (a highly nutritous food
mix for children) and 705 maize seeds. ELDP will
distribute a similar amount in Zomba and Karonga
districts. "It is far from enough to meet the
demand. It is important to continue the support.
Already now we can predict that we will be
facing massive starvation later this year when
their poor harvest has been eaten,"says ELDP
director Eliawony Meena.
28/3/02 300 People Starve to
Death in Worst Famine in 50 Years
- Lilongwe
- More than 300 people have
starved to death in Malawi's central and
northern regions because of a famine that has
been described as the worst in the last 50
years, according to reports from the country.
Action by Churches Together ACT has issued an
appeal for more than one million US dollars to
help the most affected people. Alarming reports
are coming from the region saying that more than
four million people in three countries - Malawi,
Zambia and Zimbabwe - are currently threatened
by severe food shortages due to a drought. Worst
hit by the crisis is Malawi where the problems
are mounting. During the year 2001 the country
had been affected by floods and cyclone
disasters, which resulted in a poor harvest.
Most farmers did not harvest adequate food to
take them to the harvest time. In the beginning
of this year heavy rains washed crops away in
some parts of the country. This and the current
drought aggravate the food shortage situation.
Critics say that the government's handling of
the food situation could have been better.
Furthermore, there are reports of cholera
outbreaks in several parts of the country. ACT
members, Churches Action in Relief and
Development CARD and the Evangelical Lutheran
Development Programme ELDP have described the
food shortage as a serious crisis needing urgent
response from the international community. They
point out that most people in the rural areas do
not have adequate income to purchase the little
food available on the market - this has forced
many households to stay without food for long
periods of time. From remote villages, staff
members report that some people are now eating
wild fruits, grass seeds and banana roots. At
times, that has led to deaths as some fruits are
poisonous and, in their desperation, some people
do not realise this. It is also reported that
some peasant farmers with crops in the fields
have already started to eat the premature green
maize narrowing further any chances of harvest
in May. Another common commodity people resort
to is maize bran - usually given to livestock.
But even the bran is not enough for so many
people in danger of starving. The food shortage
has reached crisis stage in the country and many
children have become severely malnourished. The
crisis has caused widespread hunger and an
increase in hunger-related diseases. It is
expected that the reported death toll of at
least 300 people will rise before help reaches
the affected people. ELDP and CARD are going to
distribute food in Nsanje, Salima (CARD) and
Karanga, Photombe and Chikwawa (ELDP). In total
the members will distribute maize to
approximately 37,500 families in the above
mentioned districts. They also plan to
distribute a highly nutritious food mix called
Likuni Phala to about 17,000 malnourished
children. The food crisis is so severe that
reportedly primary schools had to close as
pupils were unable to go to school because they
were too hungry. The rural areas where the
majority of people are dependent on agriculture
have been most affected with women and children
faring the worst. Efforts to bring food from
South Africa have been frustrated by serious
regional transportation problems, coupled with
the inefficient way the Agricultural Development
and Marketing Corporation ADMARC has been
handling the maize sales.
-
- 27/3/02 MP
Murderer
- Blantyre
- POLICE are looking for MCP
Member of Parliament (MP) for Dowa East Nassa
Kara who is on the run after allegedly murdering
his driver early this month. Public Relations
Officer George Chikowi said yesterday Kara is
atlarge and police are looking for him. "We are
holding in custody his bodyguard Philip
Singo,36, of Makhuma Village T/A Nduwa in
Mchinji and Charles Kulemeka, 23, of Kulemeka
village in Dedza," Chikowi said. The driver,
Alex Mbewe of Chadza village in Lilongwe,
Chikowi said, was murdered on March 6, 2002 as
they drove to Mzuzu. Police explained that Mbewe
was stabbed on the neck at Bua Bridge and put in
the boot of Kara's Mercedes Benz car
registration number BM 7212. "The three ran out
of ideas and decided to drive back and stopped
at Chize bridge where they pushed the car into
the river with the body in the boot," he
explained. Chikowi said Kulemeka and Singo
confessed to police that they killed the driver
after they failed to poison him. Kara's case
becomes the second case in three years involving
a politician after UDF MP for Mwanza-East Joe
Manduwa was acquitted by the High Court.
-
- 15/3/02 Murder Suspect
Bolts
- Two remandees from Chichiri
Prison, one of them a murder suspect but both on
cholera treatment at Limbe Dispensary, on
Tuesday night surprised their fellow patients
when they bolted with their intravenous drips.
Police spokesman George Chikowi said John
Manganya, 19, of Manchinjiri in Blantyre and
John Nguluwe Banda, 27, of Motheliwa, T/A
Changata in Thyolo, were on March 11 admitted to
Limbe Dispensary for cholera. But Prison Press
Officer Tobias Nowa denied having had prisoners
from Chichiri Prison suffering from cholera and
being admitted to Limbe Dispersary. Despite
being told that dispersary records indicate
Chichiri Prison as the guardian address for the
two remandees, Nowa insisted in an interview
that according to the prison's
officer-in-charge, there were no such records.
'As prison, we cannot comment on that issue
because as far as the prison is concerned, there
were no cholera patients at the dispersary. We
are not aware of the matter,' he said. Hospital
sources said some guardians reported that two
patients had disappeared while the policeman
guarding them was away. 'Our worry is that
Nguluwe was critically ill,' said a dispensary
official who did not want to be named. The
dispensary official said the recorded statement
from the remandees indicates that Nguluwe was
charged with murder.
-
- 13/3/02 Nation's Airline Sheds
110 Jobs
- AIR Malawi, the state-run
flag-carrier, has laid off 110 people with
effect from yesterday, the airline's chief
executive Francis Pelekamoyo has
confirmed.
- Pelekamoyo said in a telephone
interview the retrenchment of the workers was
backed by former finance minister Mathews
Chikaonda's observation that the airline was
overstaffed and continued to be a drain on
government coffers.
- 'We are executing
recommendations that were noted in the 2001/2002
budget which described Air Malawi as one of the
overstaffed parastatals,' he said.
- The airline chief also said the
effects of the September 11, 2001 terrorists
attacks on United States which shook the world's
aviation industry did not spare Air Malawi. He
said even the world's biggest airlines,
including the British Airways, have had bad
business since the attacks and made two hefty
job cuts after the incident. The decision to
retrench 110 people would not be strange, he
said. 'Now we need to see which way as a
business entity we will be heading to,' he said.
Following the job cuts, Air Malawi has a
work-force of at least 200 people, he said. Air
Malawi still leads the list of state-run
companies to be privatised.
-
- 13/3/02 Maneb
Apologises
- Malawi National Examinations
Board (Maneb) has apologised to form three
students who will miss the entire first term as
announced by the Ministry of Education,
following the Board's delay in releasing last
year's Junior Certificate Examinations (JCE).
Secretary for Education Thouse O'Dala said
yesterday in an interview that they reached the
policy decision to cancel the term after
consultations, saying it was not practical for
the students to go to school a few days before
end of term. Maneb Executive Director Mathews
Matemba yesterday said the Board was saddened by
the cancellation. 'But we can't deny it, our
delay in releasing the exams has contributed to
the cancellation of the first term. We apologise
to the form three students and promise the
nation this will not happen again,' Matemba
said. Matemba, however, said there are other
factors to the cancellation from the Ministry of
Education itself, like shortage of teachers and
teaching materials. 'You don't expect students
to go to school when there are no teachers, what
will they learn? We are sure, however, that when
the second term opens, teachers will try their
best to recover the time lost by lengthening the
term. Students can have a one-week break only,'
he said.
- O'Dala, however, described the
factors raised by Maneb as irrelevant. O'Dala
said the ministry is confident that students
will catch up when school opens as arrangements
have been put in place. Asked to comment on the
poor results for JCE and Malawi School
Certificate of Education (MSCE), O'Dala said the
ministry is saddened and added there is more to
be done both by the ministry and Maneb.
- 'We will try our best so that
the Board should deliver the goods. We are not
happy with what has happened. Even students
themselves are not happy. We will try our best
so that this should not happen again,' O'Dala
said. The issue of poor results and quality of
education, said O'Dala, should be improved.
Cheating has to be stopped, he added. JCE and
MSCE results for 2001 academic year have been
very poor. Only 11,143 MSCE candidates out of
61,856 have passed, and 47,218 JCE candidates
out of 82,530 have passed, representing a pass
rate of 18.01 percent and 51.21 percent,
respectively.
-
- 12/3/02 K10 Million for
TVM
- President Bakili Muluzi
yesterday directed the Ministry of Finance to
release K10 million to be used for the immediate
repair of the Television Malawi which was gutted
down by fire on Saturday. Muluzi who described
the fire as a greatest tragedy when he toured
the remains of the main studios and final
control centre TVM's transmission nerve centre
ordered the Minister Friday Jumbe to give out
the check by today. "Within 10 days the public
should be able to see temporary programmes.
Government will do everything to restore the
whole equipment as soon as it can so that the
people of Malawi continue to enjoy TV
programmes," he said. Briefing the president
during the tour, TVM Board Chairman Mohammed
Kulesi said the equipment which was rescued from
the fire might not be as effective. "Once you
lift the equipment it get affected we need a
good engineer to check the machines if they
still usable," he said. Government officials,
party officers, the press and TVM employees
walked aghast as they toured the affected
studios to the rattling of the remain roof tiles
and destroyed machines piled up in the
rooms.
-
- 3/3/02 Food Crisis Set to
Worsen
- Malawi is currently facing a
critical food shortage, but according to the
World Food Programme (WFP), an even worse
disaster could be on the way with April's
harvest expected to be sharply down. President
Bakili Muluzi declared a national disaster on
Wednesday, and made an urgent appeal for food
aid as officials warned that 70 percent of the
country's 10 million people were at risk of
starvation. He said that food shortages had
reached critical proportions, especially in
rural areas. "The reports are really bad," WFP
Country Director Adama Diop-Faye told IRIN. "The
only problem is you can't prove people died from
hunger but I'm sure the deaths we're recording
are hunger-related one way or another." She said
at some distribution sites, people had not eaten
for days and consumed WFP's high-protein
corn-soya blend rations as soon as they were
handed out. She added that anecdotal evidence
suggested there are large numbers of kwashiorkor
(extreme malnutrition) cases. Theft of food
rations was also a concern for hungry villagers,
who have begun to band together for protection
at the distribution points. The government has
said it needs an estimated US $21.6m to avoid
disaster, but has secured only US $1.6m. WFP has
in-country stocks of 798 mt of maize to feed
10,000 targeted households in 10 districts as an
immediate response. But Diop-Faye acknowledged
that this was only one-third of what was needed.
In response to the crisis, WFP is now buying 1
500 mt of maize on the local market - at highly
inflated prices. An additional eight districts
will be covered, and an estimated total of
200,000 people fed. "Even with that intervention
we are not solving the problem because more
people are suffering from food shortages each
day," Diop-Faye said. Malawi's crisis is a
combination of several factors, the WFP Country
Director said. Flooding in early 2001 led to
food shortages in several parts of the country,
especially the densely populated south. Donor
cutbacks in support for a farm input assistance
programme that provided seeds and fertiliser to
vulnerable families, and the government's
decision to sell-off some of its national food
reserve, also worsened the current situation.
Prices for the staple maize have rocketed by as
much as 400 percent - well beyond the means of
most Malawians. Meanwhile, although the
government has banned the sale of green maize,
farmers are harvesting early - both to defeat
crop thefts and to make some income. But early
harvesting, combined with destructive rains at
the beginning of the year in 15 of Malawi's 27
districts, means that another poor agricultural
season is in store for Malawi. The maize
harvest, which begins in April, was expected to
come in at 1.9 million mt. But production has
now been reassessed to 1.5 million mt. National
demand is 2.2 million mt. "Donors should look
beyond this current crisis as it is going to be
worse next year," warned Diop-Faye.
11/2/02 A New 500 Kwatcha Bank
Note
- Blantyre, Malawi - Malawi
introduces a new 500 kwacha bank note with
effect from midnight local time Monday in the
wake of an unprecedented increase in demand for
more cash due to higher prices for goods and
services. The Reserve Bank of Malawi's General
Manager (operations) Elias Kambalame, told
journalists on Monday that the institution found
it necessary to introduce the new bank note in a
bid to cut the cost of printing money.
"Inflation has gone up and demand for paper is
growing," he said. "We need more paper to print
money to meet the growing demand." Until now,
the 200 Malawi kwacha bank note was the highest
denomination. Although the Malawi government
reacted defiantly to Denmark's recent aid
withdrawal announcement, direct effects have
already started being felt. The Malawi currency
has been on a free fall since Denmark announced
it was cutting off aid to Malawi a fortnight
ago. The Reserve Bank of Malawi's move to
introduce the new 500 bank note has confirmed
speculation that all is not well in the local
economy. The Malawi kwacha started loosing
ground after Denmark said it was cutting all its
economic ties and when Great Britain also
announced it was withholding its aid money. The
local currency, which has been selling at a
comparatively healthy 65 units to the dollar
over the past six months, was worth 75 kwacha to
the US dollar at the start of business Monday.
Other commercial banks and private foreign
exchange dealers are quoting the dollar at a
much higher rate. The kwacha's depreciation
comes only days before the new Finance Minister
Friday Jumbe presents his economic plans before
a team of International Monetary Fund experts.
Local economists will keenly watch the outcome
of these talks as pre-meeting statements
indicate that the Bretton Woods institution is
not too happy with Malawi's economic management.
At a meeting in Washington last week, IMF
Managing Director Horst Kohler told President
Bakili Muluzi to control expenditure, curb
corruption and improve on governance so as to
get a sympathetic ear from foreign donors and
investors. These are the same issues that forced
Denmark to completely cut off aid to Malawi and
the European Union and Great Britain to suspend
aid. The United States government has also
redirected 6 million US dollars earmarked for
Malawi to another country. "Overspending by
government during 2001 resulted in high interest
rates and crowded out private sector activity
which has only depressed investment and growth,"
the IMF's head of mission for Malawi, Alfred
Kammer, has said. Malawi's budget almost
entirely depends on donor funding.
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- 6/2/02 RAMPAGING
HIPPOPOTAMI
- Blantyre, Malawi -
Hippopotami have gone on rampage in Malawi's
central lakeshore district of Salima, destroying
an undisclosed hectarage of rice and maize
fields, according to a local official who said
the destruction exacerbated the acute food
situation in the area. District councillor,
Sakina Chimkomanje complained about the matter
to Agriculture Minister Aleke Banda during a
tour of agriculture projects in the area. "We
have good soils here that do not even require
fertiliser but within the past few years our
harvest has been reduced by the hippos," he told
the visitors. Chimkomanje said one villager was
admitted to hospital from injuries he sustained
from a hippo while he was protecting his farm.
Salima is among 11 districts in Malawi currently
affected by severe flooding, and the situation
is further complicated by army worms that have
gnawed several hectares of crop fields.
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- 6/2/02 UNIVERSITY
REOPENS
- Blantyre, Malawi
- University of Malawi is to
re-open 18 February, after a two-month closure
following a violent student unrest that led to
the death of one student. Humprey Mvula, chair
of the Commission of inquiry into the unrest,
told a press conference in Blantyre Wednesday
that the University, shut 17 December, would
reopen after a period of serious
"soul-searching". "We have found out that
several factors led to the ugly events in
December," he said. Mvula, flanked by the
University Vice-Chancellor, David Rubadiri and
other senior staff, said indiscipline, fuelled
by political influence, caused the violence. The
School was closed following a week of violent
student unrest after police opened fire to break
a student demonstration in the University town
of Zomba, some 68-KM east of Blantyre. The
students had earlier joined other citizens
protesting what they called rising cost of the
national staple, maize, as well as the arrest of
government critics and the death in police
custody of reggae musician, Evison Matafale. A
student and a police officer's son, were hit by
live bullets in the process. The student,
Fanikiso Phiri, later died from the wounds at
Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre 17
December. Mvula said 16 students arrested in
connection with the crisis would not be allowed
back in campus until their case was cleared in
court. He described the unrest as part of a
series of events that has eroded discipline
among University students in Malawi. Mvula also
said that "certain things" previously enjoyed by
students had disappeared due to economic
constraints. But he assured that the University
"is working on ways to avoid a repeat of the
unprecedented events in December."
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- 5/2/02 AIDS KILLING
TEACHERS
- Blantyre, Malawi - A least
7,500 teachers die of AIDS-related illnesses
each year in Malawi further straining government
resources in this already under-staffed sector.
According to the controller of human resources
and development, Aubrey Mvula, the incurable
disease kills between 6 and 8 percent of the
education ministry's estimated 60,000 employees
each year. Although teachers are supposed to be
opinion leaders, Mvula said, they have resisted
changing their behaviour. "Most teachers resist
changing their moral behaviour but I think it's
time to change and talk about it now," he said.
Local analysts say most teachers give up on life
and become reckless because of repressive
conditions under which they work. For starters,
teachers are the most under-paid lot in Malawi.
Currently, a primary school teachers gets about
30 US dollars a month while those who teach in
secondary schools do not make anything beyond 70
US dollars. The ministry of education has come
under increasing pressure to incorporate
HIV/AIDS into the school curriculum, which the
Director of secondary education Charles Gunsaru
said had not been revised since 1989. "A
revision would help us incorporate the social,
political and economic changes that have taken
place," Gunsaru said. Meanwhile, the country's
two largest referral hospitals run out of
anti-retroviral drugs. Publicity officer for the
AIDS Counselling and Training Society John Chisi
said there was a danger that people living with
AIDS could develop a resistance to
anti-retrovirals if they missed the drugs for
too long. "We just hope the delay (in delivery)
won't take longer than a month," he said. The
Queen Elizabeth and Lilongwe central hospitals
ran out of the drugs after the Treasury failed
to deposit money into the accountant general's
account in time. Queen Elizabeth Central
Hospital's director Ibrahim Idala said he was
optimistic the life-prolonging drugs would be
available in a few weeks time but could not
specify a date. He said the two hospitals
provided anti-retrovirals to about 400 patients
at a heavily-subsided cost of 30 US dollars per
month.
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- 2/2/02 FLOODS IN
MALAWI
- Blantyre, Malawi - Floods
have displaced close to 10,000 people from 1,500
families in Malawi's central lakeshore district
of Salima and the northern border district of
Karonga. Whole families of the displaced are
currently camping in church and school
buildings. Most of them have lost almost
everything and have not eaten anything in days.
Salima district's development Officer Austin
Kaunda said the floods destroyed 187 houses in
Chief Ndindi area. "Several other houses have
also been partly damaged and it's risky for
people to continue living in them" . He also
said the floods washed away 1,102 hectares of
maize, rice and cassava fields. Many livestock,
including chicken and goats, have not been
accounted for. The development officer said that
following an average of 102 millimetres or rain
daily for the entire week, River Dzongwe burst
its banks. A railway line has also been washed
away, making relief efforts a nightmare. Two
weeks ago, floods had swept a bridge away in the
area. Group Village Headman Khwidzi said his
subjects were sleeping when they heard angry
noises of water roaring down the hill in the
early hours of the day. "I believe the
flash-floods were induced by four cracks in
Nchocholo Hills that sent water gushing out,
inundating the river," he said. Flash-floods are
shrouded in myths in Malawi. It is believed that
an angry wild animal accompanies the gushing
water, exacerbating the destruction in its wake.
Meanwhile, the Malawian First Lady, Patricia
Shanil Muluzi, has come to the rescue of
thousands of displaced people in Karonga. She
distributed an assortment of relief items
including maize flour, cooking utensils and
bedding. Khwauli Msiska, an opposition Alliance
for Democracy parliamentarian in the area, told
journalists that more than 3000 families had
lost everything and "have to replant their
gardens if hunger is to be averted this year."
In a related development, a storm has destroyed
at least 72 houses on the remote island of Chisi
in the southern district of Zomba leaving
several families homeless and hungry. An
18-year-old woman and her daughter were injured
when the rain storm hit the remote
island.
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- 30/1/02 SIAMESE
TWINS
- Blantyre, Malawi -
Doctors at Queen Elizabeth
Central Hospital (QECH) are still monitoring the
siamese twins born on Christmas Day at Mwanza
District Hospital and undecided on the operation
to separate them. The twins, who turned 31 days
yesterday, according to Hospital Director
Ibrahim Idana, were in good health and that
doctors were monitoring them to see what to do
next. Asked about the possibilities of the
operation by the local hospital, Idana said they
are still undecided. Hospital Administrator
Daisy Mbalame also said the siamese twins were
fine and are growing healthy. But a nurse
working in the nursery disclosed that the twins
developed sores because they can only sleep on
one side. She, however, said medication was
applied to cure the sores. Three weeks ago a
surgeon, Erick Borgstein, told Daily Times that
doctors were set to operate on the twins in two
or three months' time. The female siamese twins
who are joined at the belly below the sternum,
have two hands each, three legs and are using
the same excretion organ. Their mother Esnart
Dickson, 42, gave birth through Ceasarian
operation. The family had earlier in January
called for support from the general public
financially should the doctors recommend that
the twins be operated out of the country.
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- 28/1/02 FOOD
CRISIS
- Lilongwe, Malawi - A big
crisis meeting is underway in Lilongwe to seek
ways to avert a recurrence of the critical food
crisis that hit Malawi this year. The meeting is
being held against the backdrop of reports that
at least 10 children were being admitted daily
to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital for
hunger-related illnesses, and that up to 60 of
them have already died. Opening the meeting,
Agriculture minister Aleke Banda said Malawi was
failing to achieve food security because poverty
has not been addressed. "Agriculture contributes
30 to 40 per cent of GDP and 90 per cent of the
country's foreign exchange [and] will therefore
remain the major source of growth," he said,
arguing that because agriculture has remained
stagnant the economy has equally stood still.
Banda said his ministry has devised what is
being called the Malawi Agriculture Sector
Investment Process (MASIP) to revolutionise
agriculture in the country. The two-day meeting
has brought together agriculturists, farmers and
civil rights groups, the World Food Programme
and the International Fund for Agriculture
Development. It is discussing ways to improve
irrigation land from 8 000 to 40 000 hectares
within the next three years. Malawi's
agriculture development is also being hampered
by high population density. At 170 people per
square km Malawi has one of the highest
population densities in Africa. But, despite
having approximately 10 million hectares of
arable land available for farming, only 5.3
million hectares is being used. Even as the
technocrats are discussing the future, the
current food crisis in Malawi is degenerating.
Maize husks, on which many poor families now
survive, are becoming increasingly hard to come
by.The situation is said to be desperate in
rural areas where people are reportedly eating
armyworms to survive.
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- 27/1/02 CHOLERA
OUTBREAK
- Blantyre, Malawi - At least
44 people have been confirmed dead following an
outbreak of cholera in two of Malawi's three
regions. The Chief Health Education Officer in
the Ministry of Health, Jonathan Nkhoma, said in
Blantyre on Sunday that 425 cholera patients
were being treated in the central and southern
regions. He said that the southern lakeshore
district of Mangochi is the most affected area.
"There has been no reported cholera case in the
northern region," Nkhoma said. Nkhoma noted that
cholera is worse in the southern region because
Lake Chilwa has been contaminated. He said since
the lake has no outlet, all wastes from the
uplands are concentrated in it thereby creating
ideal conditions for the breeding of the
cholera-causing bacteria. "The reservoir of
cholera is Lake Chilwa because it is an inland
lake which is also salty and these conditions
favour the breeding of the bacteria which causes
the disease," the education officer said.
However, environmentalists have expressed a
different opinion saying cholera is getting out
of hand due to lack of enough toilets. A recent
environmental survey showed that most health
centres in the country had only one toilet
catering for cholera and non-cholera patients as
well as guardians. This, makes transmission of
the disease both easy and fast, the survey
stated. Nkhoma also attributed the spread of the
disease tothe traditional practice of washing
the corpses of cholera victims. "Corpses of
cholera victims are supposed to be encased in a
plastic bag which has then to be buried without
opening it," he said. But most mourners in
Malawi insist on making the body to lie in
state. This, the Chief Health Education Officer
said, makes mourners susceptible to catching the
disease.
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- 26/1/02 FOOD SHORTAGE
DEEPENS
- Blantyre, Malawi - As the
shortage of food becomes severe in Malawi, at
least 60 children have died from hunger-related
illnesses while an average of 10 others are
admitted daily for similar reasons, health
officials revealed Saturday. Ibrahim Idana,
director at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in
Blantyre, told journalists that most of the
children come to the hospital emaciated from
days of hunger. "All beds in the children's ward
are taken up by children with severe cases of
malnutrition and dehydration," he said. On
Saturday pathetic scenes were witnessed at the
hospital in some cases with whole families
camping there hoping to share the food their
admitted children receive. Idrissa Kombe, whose
two children are both admitted for malnutrition,
said he, his wife and two teenage children are
camping at the hospital. A peasant farmer, Kombe
said he could no longer afford the very high
price charged for a small bag of maize and maize
husks which his family has been surviving on.
"We have no choice but to camp here and eat
whatever my admitted sons get," he said. Kombe's
story is just one of the many heart-rending
stories throughout the country. In most rural
districts, where several hunger-related deaths
largely go unreported, people are surviving on
wild fruits and green bananas and sugarcane.
Agriculture minister Aleke Banda said the
government was exerting hard efforts to import
maize. But such efforts are creating logistical
nightmares after Uganda, which originally agreed
to sell Malawi 60000 metric tonnes of maize,
pulled out at the 11th hour. Several wagons
conveying maize from South Africa to Malawi are
stuck in Mozambique due to railway
congestion.
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- 21/1/2002 CORRUPT TRAFFIC
OFFICERS
- Blantyre, Malawi - Malawi
police have withdrawn at least 114 traffic
officers from the streets following wide-spread
allegations of corruption. The measure follows a
swoop by the newly appointed Inspector General
of Police, Joseph Aironi, and other senior aides
who,after receiving several complaints of
traffic police harassment, went out in mufti to
see for themselves. While waiting in a queue at
a traffic check-point, Aironi watched as a
traffic police officer demanded a bribe from a
motorist whose vehicle was not roadworthy,
before personally stripping the erring officer
of his uniform. "I want to make sure that
unnecessary road accidents are prevented on
Malawi's roads," he said. Malawi, despite having
comparatively fewer cars plying its roads, is
billed to top the record of traffic accidents in
the entire southern African region. Aironi said
most road accidents occur because of
non-roadworthy vehicles that are allowed on the
roads by corrupt traffic officers. Police
spokesman Oliver Soko said initial
investigations show that most of the removed
traffic officers do not even have the necessary
training in traffic policing. "In several cases
it has been discovered that most of them simply
connive with their station officers to be
deployed on the streets in order to solicit
bribes," he said. Soko said the fake traffic
officers would in turn share the spoils with
their bosses. He said most of the alleged
corrupt and untrained traffic police officers
have been sanctioned, while others are still
being probed.
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