MALAWI: Passport Hack & more – 14th Mar 2024

Muli bwanji from BA! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 14th of March twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

The country’s passport problems have finally come to an end. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services stopped printing passports in January because their passport issuing system got hacked. But on Tuesday the 12th, they said they had restored the system and had resumed printing passports. They said they would start in Lilongwe this week and gradually do the same in other regions.

The Department also announced a 55% reduction in passport fees for all Malawians, but this only applies to local passports. They will now pay fifty thousand Kwacha, or roughly thirty dollars, instead of the usual ninety thousand Kwacha, or about fifty-four dollars.

Despite this announcement, people don’t trust the Immigration Department since none of their offices across the country have started issuing passports, and their statement did not say when they would. One local paper had an anonymous insider who revealed that the passport issuing system was still down, so they could not resume passport production.

Local media’s spot checks said that the Immigration offices in Mzuzu, Blantyre, and Lilongwe had no activity and that the officers were sitting idle, despite the high demand for passports. Not only that, getting a temporary travel document is a hassle too. An anonymous businessman who buys merchandize from Zambia told local media that he had been waiting for his travel document since last Friday.

Let’s move on and talk about the sugar shortage. The Competition and Trade Commission conducted some inspections and confirmed that, since sugar has been scarce on the market, some greedy suppliers were selling it at exorbitant prices.

On Friday the 8th, the Ministry of Trade and Industry sealed some shops in Lilongwe for overpricing sugar, such as Romana Trading, Simama General Dealers, and Chou-Chou. They were selling a bale of sugar with twenty, one-kilogram packets for sixty-nine thousand Kwacha or a little over forty dollars, instead of the sugar manufacturer's recommended price of 3,500 Kwacha or about twenty-three dollars.

After hearing the news, locals took to social media to name other greedy suppliers in hopes that the Ministry would catch wind of it and punish them too.

But while some people decide to air their grievances on social media, others prefer to get hands-on.

Some members of the Mbawa Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (or CCAP) in Blantyre wanted to destroy their church after its management ordered the choir not to perform at one of its deceased member’s funeral because he was a known alcoholic. They also justified their decision saying the deceased had been disciplined and forewarned of the consequences of not changing his ways, but he didn’t listen.

Upon hearing the news, some angry members stormed the church and started stoning it. Police had to be called to the scene to restore calm.

Nonetheless, the country has bigger things to worry about, especially now that Cyclone Filipo arrived in neighbouring country Mozambique on the morning of Tuesday the 12th. Some parts of the country are already feeling its effects, as they have started receiving heavy rains coupled with strong winds.

According to the Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services (or DCCMS), the cyclone is around 490 kilometers or 304 miles away from Nsanje district. They are anticipating that it will keep going down south from the Indian Ocean and into the Mozambican regions. It will likely affect Malawi directly, by coming into the country or, indirectly, through heavy rains, as is the case in areas such as Lilongwe. The Department’s advice? Stay away from water bodies and stay indoors as much as possible.

Meanwhile, people in the Mzimba district, in the north of the country, are concerned about their health.

Prince Chirwa, the Mzimba South District Director of Health and Social Services, said the district has registered sixty-four cases of conjunctivitis or pink eye. He said the disease is highly contagious and asked locals to wash their hands often, avoid touching their eyes, share personal items like towels and pillows, and also cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing. He said people should apply the same measures used to contain COVID-19 cases.

The first case of pinkeye was detected in Karonga this February and has since spread to Nkhata Bay, Chitipa, Likoma and Lilongwe districts. Some symptoms of the disease include discoloration of the white part of the eye, increased tear production, eye pain, itching and eye discharge.

In other news, a study published in the Nature Scientific journal on Tuesday the 12th says Malawi and Mozambique have 127 new species that are native to these two countries only. The study was looking into the botanic, animal and insect data of the South East Africa Mountain Archipelago of Malawi and Mozambique. It also looked into the geological, climatic, and rainfall patterns of more than thirty mountains in the region.

The study, led by Professor Julian Bayliss of Oxford University, also established that, even though there are some new species, in the past twenty years, some areas in the archipelago have lost one-fifth of their bio-diversity. They called for multi-country efforts to conserve and preserve the unique ecological diversity.

Racheal Gausi Hoepfner, a model from Rumphi district but based in Germany, walked the runways at the Berlin and Paris Fashion Weeks. Her first stint was at the Berlin Fashion Week on the 8th of February, and then at the Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday the 5th.

Hoepfner told local media that she walked for seven different designers from Poland, England and Italy, and that she was grateful for that experience because it has improved her modeling profile immensely.

Next up, the movie titled The Consequences will be released soon. The producers and the entire cast are from Malawi. The official trailer is coming out next month, but a fifteen-second snippet of it had people talking. Local media shared it on social media on Thursday the 7th and has since got over thirty thousand views.

The producer, Malazone Films, said the film is about a young man who returns to his father’s church, only to uncover a plot by one member to rewrite the Bible for selfish reasons.

Check out the snippet with the link in the show notes, and tell us if it’s worth the hype!

Speaking of social media, a lot of posts were of people celebrating their friends or family for graduating. The University of Malawi (or UNIMA) held a graduation ceremony at the Great Hall in Zomba city on Wednesday the 13th.

However, the graduation came with a grim revelation. During the event, Samson Sajidu, the Vice Chancellor of UNIMA, said the high student-teacher ratio is currently compromising the quality of education at the school. He said that 317 lecturers are attending to about 11,700 students, which represents a ratio that is almost double the recommended figure.

And to close this edition, Che Mandota, an award-winning comedian, has become the first Malawian artist to receive the YouTube Silver Play Button award. YouTube gives the award out to content creators once they get 100 thousand subscribers on their YouTube channel.

On Wednesday the 13th, Che Mandota told local media outlets that the award meant a lot to him, and that he considered it an encouragement to him and other local artists too.

The award also shows the country’s growing digital literacy. With an internet penetration of 24% out of a population of twenty million, businesses depending on online engagement tend to struggle to connect with the vast majority of Malawi’s population.

And.. that’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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Pitani bwino!