“Petrol Shortage Hits Crisis Levels”

On Monday, I stalk a petrol tanker truck. We’re down to 1/3 of a tank. Back home, I’d be planning another dozen trips across town, driving Nathaniel crazy with my tendency to let the gauge drop below empty before hitting a gas station. Here in Malawi, with the newspapers reporting a complete outage in major cities the previous weekend and an ongoing dry spell to come, this is a major concern. I drive past the Total at Bisnowaty Center on my way to the grocery store and notice that they’ve blocked off a bunch of parking spaces – a hint, someone once told me, that the petrol truck will be coming soon. A quick stop past the attendant confirms that fuel will be coming “any time from now.” I hit the Shoprite and return, agonizing over whether I should join the 30 car queue – short, really, for a petrol queue – at the Petroda. I decide I’ll take my chances and continue on. There’s still no truck at the Total. I drive past, hoping there will be petrol on the outskirts of town where I need to go to pay our mechanic. A block down the street, I pass the tanker! I whip round the rotary and back into the station, managing to weasel into a spot one car from the pump. A forty minute wait while the tanker unloads (at least I'm parked rather than constantly inching forward) and I’m the proud owner of MK 10,000 worth of petrol. Thank goodness for being second in line! They’re limiting most people to MK 5,000 (about four gallons worth at $7/gallon) but don’t quite have their act together yet when I pull in. Safe from strand-ation for another week!

The petrol crisis in Malawi is less a crisis and more an ongoing reality, like power and water outages, of living here. Things will seem fine for a few days and suddenly, one day, there are queues stretching a hundred cars around the block. Intimately intertwined with Malawi’s perpetual forex shortage, the petrol crisis only serves to highlight the country’s economic situation.

Over breakfast, Nathaniel and I question why we feel so much more aware of the economy here than in the US. Is it the tiny size of the country and the economy (fifteen million people living in a country the size of Pennsylvania)? The fact that we live about a mile from the presidential palace on one side and parliament and capital hill on the other? Is it that we pay for everything with cash, making us hyper-aware of every dollar spent? Maybe it’s the fact that the newspaper is still the primary means of communication here, and we read it cover to cover rather than picking and choosing articles from NYT.com. Or perhaps it's because when we were last in the US we were both gainfully employed in an industry that, given grant cycle delays, had not yet been hit as fully by the economic crisis. Whatever the reason, it has been fascinating to learn about the flow of money and goods here.

The Malawi kwacha has been kept at an artificially low level (150 vs. 200 to the dollar) to attempt to curb inflation – an average inflation rate of 7.4% for 2010 was cause for celebration. Unfortunately, this means that no one wants to buy the undervalued kwacha and there is never enough foreign currency in the bank to pay for imports. Adding to the forex problems, Malawi has only a few export crops – burley tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar and sometimes maize – and none of the lucrative fossil fuels and precious metals / gems found in other African nations. (Of course the ongoing peace in the country may owe a lot to the lack of blood diamonds…)

“BRUTAL TRUTH: Malawi has no means to replace tobacco soon” In 2012, new policies outlined by the WHO’s Framework on Tobacco Control will go into effect, making the burley tobacco grown here (the type currently used in 50% of the world’s cigarettes) much less valuable, and perhaps totally unsellable. Given that burley tobacco accounts for 60% of Malawi’s export earnings and that the industry employs two of Malawi’s fifteen million people, this will be a major blow to the economy. Virginia tobacco, which isn’t banned by the new regs, apparently requires much more land and huge investments in infrastructure for industrial curing.

This just highlights how much Malawi is constantly buffeted by the demands of the UN, other, more powerful governments, and international development partners. If the WHO tried to screw with a major cash crop of the US, you can be sure they would somehow magically change their tune, but somehow Virginia tobacco survived the new regs despite (according to one article) blatant admissions by the WHO that it is equally harmful to people's health. 

In 2005, then newly elected president, Bingu wa Mutharika, ignored the demands of the IMF, World Bank and others (who wanted to force Malawi to participate in the global free market economy as a net importer of food) and introduced fertilizer and seed subsidies, ending a deep famine that had taken hundreds of lives. The subsidy program worked – Malawi has actually been a net exporter of maize for the last few years – but raises ongoing questions about sustainability. 

This week, the country is in an uproar over Germany’s 50% cut in aid over human rights issues and threats that the US won’t sign the Millennium Challenge Corporation grant, which promises $350 million to strengthen the nation’s electricity infrastructure. The Minister of Justice’s (fair, in my opinion) response: “We are not ready to change the laws to satisfy donors. We have to understand that as a country you need to have certain principles.” Of course I would prefer that Malawi have gay rights, but it’s not like our own country has figured this out. Why should we, or others, be able to demand such hypocritical acquiescence by a sovereign nation?