MALAWI: Polio Outbreak & more – 3rd Feb 2026

Muli bwanji from BA! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 3rd of February twenty twenty-six. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

The Ministry of Health said Malawi has an outbreak of polio, describing the health scare as the second wave that the country has experienced since twenty twenty-two.

A statement they released on Monday the 2nd said they detected polio in Blantyre City in the Southern Region from a laboratory-tested sample that they got from a public toilet in the city.

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease. It can cause physical disabilities. It spreads through contaminated water and food or direct contact with an infected person, so the Ministry asked people to avoid crowded spaces.

Three former government officials were arrested for financial crimes amounting to 200 billion Kwacha, which is 115 million dollars, in what the media is calling the East Bridge Scandal.

Colleen Zamba, the former Secretary to the President and Cabinet; Sosten Gwengwe, the former Finance Minister; and Sam Kawale, the former Agriculture Minister, were charged with money laundering, fraud under false pretences, and abuse of office, for paying a UK-based butchery 750 million Kwacha (433 thousand dollars) to deliver fertilizer, which it never did. They also awarded East Bridge, a Romanian company, billions of taxpayer funds to buy tobacco from Malawian farmers and pretended the money belonged to East Bridge.

The police and Anti-Corruption Bureau did not get into details, but the Platform for Investigative Journalism wrote an article explaining how everything happened. Check it out with the link in the show notes.

Business came to a standstill on Thursday the 29th after several shop owners rallied against the Malawi Revenue Authority’s new tax invoicing system.

Local news reported that over 400 members of the Limbe Local Shop Owners Association marched to the Authority’s offices in Blantyre, demanding that the Authority exempt them from the tax. They are afraid it will run their businesses to the ground once it is applied.

Malawi’s old capital, Zomba in the Southern Region, had its own demonstrations on Friday the 30th, while people in Mzuzu in the Northern Region protested on Monday the 2nd.

A few weeks ago, the Malawi Revenue Authority said it would introduce the Electronic Tax Invoicing System to replace the Electronic Fiscal Devices. This new system would account for all taxes applicable to businesses, including those introduced by the government last month, such as the income tax. The old fiscal devices only accounted for the Value Added Tax, while the new one demands that business operators also get taxed on their goods and operating capital, which could harm their growth.

At first, the Authority wanted to implement the new system from Sunday the 1st of February to the 30th of April, but after the shop owners’ demonstrations, they shifted the implementation date to the 1st of May, with hopes to have convinced the traders by then.

The current government said it has to reintroduce the fuel levy, which was scrapped by the previous administration, because it is not raising enough money to maintain the country's roads, and fuel levies are used for road works.

The Ministry of Transport and Public Works admitted that the levy will probably make fuel prices go up, just weeks after a fuel hike.

The Ministry said they have also introduced additional taxes to help construct roads, which they say were neglected by the previous government.

President Peter Mutharika changed the Cabinet once again. This is the third time since he began his presidency last September.

On Friday the 30th, he shifted the heads of three Ministries, namely that of Trade, Culture, and Natural Resources. The only appointment that made sense was that of Simon Itaye, who will lead the Trade Industry, since the previous minister, George Patridge, was appointed as the Reserve Bank Governor.

The other appointments had people wondering why Mutharika keeps switching his ministers. Some media houses insinuated he might not be confident with his choices. The Nation Newspaper’s Emmanuel Luciano wrote about it in his article titled Reshuffles and Gomo’s Town Hall Meetings. Check it out with the link in the show notes.

Civil servants might get switched around too, as a new policy that the government is considering would require civil servants working in District Councils to work in their districts of origin.

Ben Phiri, the Minister of Local Government, believes that posting employees in new districts makes their work ethic poor, since some of them travel long distances to get to work. When he visited Nsanje District in the Southern Region, he found that some civil servants were not at work at 9 AM, even though their shift started at 7:30 AM.

He thinks tardiness is delaying districts’ development. However, some users on Facebook disagreed with the Minister, some arguing that MPs should implement the policy on themselves first.

Some journalists from the state-owned Malawi Broadcasting Corporation TV were suspended for not covering a presidential activity well. The station’s Director of News and Current Affairs was affected.

Last Friday, the 30th, President Mutharika met Naito Yasushi, the new Japanese Ambassador, and the station aired a report showing Yasushi’s arrival, his engagement with the President, and his comments to the media. An insider revealed that someone in the president’s office felt the report focused too much on the Ambassador, which led to the suspensions.

Other journalists are also drawing attention.

A story by Jack McBrams, one of Malawi’s leading investigative journalists, was recently listed as one of the Top 10 Best Investigative Stories globally for twenty twenty-five by the Global Investigative Journalism Network, which is like the Grammys for investigative journalism. McBram’s article was one of two stories from Africa that made the list, prompting local media to describe his win as a rare recognition.

His article titled The Shadow Fleet was published last November on the Platform for Investigative Journalism’s website, and exposed how bad guys were using Malawi’s aviation system to avoid sanctions and fly planes without being checked.

The streets won’t stop talking about the new music production fees.

On Friday the 30th, the Producers and Audio Engineering Association of Malawi released a statement saying that the 26% inflation rate and the overall cost of living had forced them to increase their music recording sessions to one million Kwacha per session (over 570 dollars) starting Sunday the 1st. This fee includes customers’ use of music equipment and engineering support.

The Association said the new fees will help them invest in advanced technology so they can provide premium services, but some people feel the fees are too high, even though it is unclear how much they were before.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Malawi named and shamed twenty-five exporters who did not return forex proceeds worth over 16.6 million dollars from their exported goods and services. They gave them until Saturday the 31st to pay them, or risk being fined.

Their statement, released on Friday the 31st, emphasized that the law requires exporters to remit their export earnings to the Bank within 120 days from the date of export, or prove that they did not receive the proceeds. It also said the Bank sent several reminders to the exporters, but didn’t get any responses.

The Bank said it needs forex to buy essentials like medicine.

A new telecommunications company might be joining Malawi soon.

Malcel said it is preparing to launch its full commercial operations, but didn’t say when, leaving some people skeptical.

Malcel launched its operations in Lilongwe, in the Central Region, only in October twenty twenty-four, saying this was its test phase and a way to keep the company going while it prepared to roll out fully. However, things came to a halt due to forex shortages, making it hard for them to buy necessary network equipment.

Now, they said an investor pumped 220 million dollars into their business, helping them launch soon, with both mobile network and digital payment services.

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

And that's it for this week. But wait, we have an important thing to tell you. We've decided to bring the Rorshok XXX Update to an end. We've loved doing it and it has been going since twenty twenty-one. Originally, we'd sort of hoped that the listeners could connect and a small community might form, but one way or another, we didn't know how to do that, and it hasn't really happened. And putting them out every week is lots of work and not cheap....so we're just going to stop and focus on the other community building things Rorshok is doing. You can check out our projects on our website. Thank you for listening all these years. We'd love to hear from you, say hi at info@rorshok.com.

Pitani bwino!