MALAWI: Chakwera’s Zomba Rally & more – 17th June 2025

Muli bwanji from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 17th of June twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

On Monday the 16th, President Chakwera held a rally at his Zomba residence that had some locals wondering if he was misusing public funds.

The suspicions emerged because the President distributed fifty thousand Kwacha, which is nearly thirty dollars, to his four thousand attendees. This amounts to roughly 200 million Kwacha, which is 115 thousand dollars. Local news said Chakwera pulled a similar stunt when he invited his supporters to his Kamuzu Palace residence in Lilongwe in the Central Region.

Some locals accused Chakwera of being insensitive because Malawi is experiencing various shortages of important commodities, such as sugar.

Speaking of which, in previous episodes, we mentioned the Ministry of Trade was working with the police to crack down on illegal sugar exports.

On Friday the 13th, the police arrested a foreign national who was caught smuggling 300 bales of sugar into Zambia.

Vitumbiko Mumba, the Minister of Trade, took to his Facebook page and shared that sugar smugglers are transporting bales of sugar to neighboring Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique, and selling them at almost double what they cost on local markets.

Mumba said smuggling is currently the biggest reason for the sugar shortage.

The Malawi Electoral Commission will stop receiving nomination papers for presidential candidates for the September General Elections on the 5th of July.

On Sunday the 15th, local news revealed that nine presidential aspirants had submitted their papers to the Commission. The nine include President Lazarus Chakwera, who is representing the Malawi Congress Party; former presidents Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party, and Joyce Banda of the People’s Party.

On Sunday the 15th, Vice President Michael Usi held a political rally in Zomba in the Southern Region, but did not say whether his newly registered party, Odya Zake Alibe Mlandu, would contest in the elections.

The World Bank is demanding that Local Councils refund them 1.3 billion Kwacha, which is 750 thousand dollars, by the 30th of June, after a financial audit for the years twenty twenty-one/twenty twenty-two and twenty twenty-two/twenty twenty-three found that the Councils may have mismanaged the funds while implementing the Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods project.

According to a statement by the Bank, the mismanaged funds went to questionable expenses that were non-compliant with agreed rules, such as the project’s Financing Agreement and the Public Finance Management Act.

Nsanje District in the Southern Region and Dedza District in the Central Region are among the councils expected to refund the World Bank. However, there are questions about where the councils will get the money since they are broke.

Malawi is one of thirty-six countries that may receive US visa bans or travel restrictions if it does not meet certain requirements within sixty days.

A memo by the US government shared in the Washington Post on Saturday the 14th said that the spotlighted countries lack a competent central government authority to produce reliable identity documents, and have a large number of citizens who have overstayed in the US.

On Sunday the 16th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they had not received any official communication from the US.

If this restriction passes, many Malawians will struggle to travel to the US for school and business opportunities.

Meanwhile, Malawians studying and working in Israel were urged to remain safe amid the Israel-Iran conflict, which escalated on Friday the 13th. The Israeli government has since declared a State of Emergency. According to international news, the declaration bans educational activities, all gatherings, and workplace operations, except for essential services.

On Monday the 16th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs advised Malawians in Israel to follow all the guidelines from the Israeli Home Front Command, which is providing alerts and instructions in case of drone or missile attacks from Iran.

According to the Malawi Embassy in Israel, at least 1,100 Malawians live on Israeli farms.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Labor indicate that the child labor prevalence rates in Malawi are now at almost forty percent, against the fourteen percent that UNICEF reported in twenty twenty-four. These figures came out as Malawi joined the rest of the world in commemorating World Day Against Child Labor on Thursday the 12th.

According to the Ministry’s statement, over seventy percent of children aged between five and seventeen work in agriculture, while a bit over twenty percent are involved in domestic labor.

Amos Chibwana, a Child Rights Activist, blamed parents who force their children into child labor to help strengthen the family's financial muscle.

In trending news, the Malawi Police arrested twenty-three suspects involved in a firearms smuggling ring on Sunday the 15th.

According to local news, the police received an anonymous tip-off about Mike Minjale, a suspect who allegedly smuggled firearms into Malawi from South Africa. The Police set up a roadblock at Ngumbe in Blantyre in the Southern Region, where they arrested Minjale.

Further investigation into the issue led to the additional arrests of three Malawi Defense Force officers, two Chinese nationals, and one British/Italian national in six districts in the Southern and Central Regions. The police also seized nineteen pistols, 415 live rounds of ammunition, three explosive devices, and over 325 blank cartridges.

Going back to shortages for a bit, the government still has to sort out the month-long scarcity of Liquified Petroleum Gas (or LPG), which most locals use for cooking and heating via gas cylinders.

On Monday the 16th, a local media house revealed that major LPG selling points across the capital city Lilongwe were deserted or shut down, leaving their customers stranded.

The Ministry of Energy said most companies were unable to import adequate supplies because of the forex shortage. However, some people such as Charles Bakolo, an Environmentalist, said some locals might be pushed to rely on alternative fuel sources like charcoal, which harm the environment. He said this could derail the government’s progress in environmental conservation.

While the LPG shortage is a new low for Malawi, fuel scarcity is a recurring problem.

It started again late last week. By Friday the 13th, fuel could only be found on the black market.

On Monday the 16th, some concerned citizens called upon the government to find long-lasting solutions to the fuel shortage. They spoke to local media from the Petroda Filling Station in Blantyre in the Southern Region, where motorists were scrambling for the commodity.

Local news said the queues in Zomba city had gotten very long and blocked the flow of traffic within the city. Yet, authorities have yet to comment on the matter.

Some vendors in Mzuzu in the Northern Region planned to demonstrate on Tuesday the 17th. They wanted to present a petition to the City Council, demanding that foreign nationals stop operating retail shops, as they believe these foreign nationals are limiting opportunities for local business operators.

However, the protests did not happen because masked men with pangas disrupted the demonstrators. Some of the masked men warned the protesters not to go against the government, raising questions on whether the ruling Malawi Congress Party had sent them. The police just standing at a distance and watching didn’t help matters.

The incident has raised concerns about political intimidation by the government.

Closing this edition, a cold wave caused local temperatures to get extremely cold in most parts of the country. It started on Thursday the 12th, making the weather windy, cloudy and chilly. There was a lot of fog, drizzle, and rain, too.

Over the weekend, the Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services said temperatures dropped to an average of nine degrees Celsius, or nearly forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. They warned that the low temperatures may trigger underlying health conditions like asthma, especially amongst the young and the elderly.

The Department said it would start to get warm on Tuesday the 16th. However, even though the sun came out in some regions, it was still chilly.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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