MALAWI: The Forex Amendment Act & more – 27th May 2025

Muli bwanji from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 27th of May twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

President Lazarus Chakwera signed six bills during the fifty-first Parliamentary session held on Wednesday the 21st. Most of these bills focus on fiscal matters, such as the Taxation Amendment and the Value Added Tax Amendment bills. However, the most notable legislation is the Foreign Exchange Amendment Act of twenty twenty-five, which aims to boost the government’s forex reserves.

The Forex Amendment Act targets illegal forex dealers on the black market, where exchange rates are higher than those set by the government. It says anyone involved in illegal forex trading may face a fine of 1.2 billion Kwacha, which is over 690 thousand dollars, or serve up to fourteen years in prison.

The Constitutional Court in Lilongwe made a ruling that changed the role of Members of Parliament.

On Monday the 26th, the Court ruled that MPs will no longer manage the Constituency Development Fund and the Water Resource Fund, both of which give councils money for development projects in the areas they oversee. The Court ordered that a different stakeholder should be in charge of these Funds, and that MPs should only have an oversight role.

The ruling also removed the MPs' right to vote in local councils, saying that the MPs' role as lawmakers in Parliament raises a conflict of interest when they also function as decision-makers at Councils.

The Court said the Parliament should develop new guidelines for MPs’ roles.

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs launched a five-year National Social Protection Policy to shield vulnerable locals from economic and climate shocks.

This policy is not new; it replaces the twenty twelve National Social Support Policy. The updated policy introduces seven strategic pillars, including social security for informal workers and shock-response safety nets, aimed at addressing gaps identified during past local disasters like Cyclone Freddy.

The new policy comes at a time when research revealed that local public sector workers are struggling to afford basic necessities.

According to the May report of The Human Cost of Public Sector Cuts in Africa, ninety-seven percent of Malawi’s health workers do not earn enough money to cover household costs like food and electricity. The report also said that ninety percent of teachers struggle to pay for their own children's school fees.

On Saturday the 24th, ActionAid - a global federation working for a poverty and injustice-free world - released a statement in response to the research, urging the Ministry of Finance to ensure that workers are paid fairly.

Unfortunately, higher pay may not shield people from shortage-induced price surges. For instance, people are now queuing for sugar, which has now doubled in price since it went scarce on local markets about two weeks ago.

On Tuesday the 27th, the Illovo Sugar company, which is Malawi’s biggest sugar producer, finally spoke out on the current sugar shortage and blamed local traders for smuggling it to neighboring countries, thus creating a distribution shortage locally.

They also said the heavy rains that the country experienced last week delayed their twenty twenty-five crushing season at their estates, because they could not access their fields or harvest sugarcane at their usual rates.

Despite this statement, locals are not having it and want the government to step in.

In trending news, Inkosi Chindi of Mzimba District in the Northern Region fired eight Village Heads serving as his aides for engaging in politics.

According to local news, the ruling Malawi Congress Party (or MCP) was planning to host primary elections in the district. However, the aides urged them to cancel the primaries and allow their candidates to run as independents during the September General Elections to avoid repeating the violence that broke out during the primaries that the MCP held in the same district earlier this month.

However, Inkosi Chindi said the aides’ actions were disgraceful because he believed that Village Heads should not be involved in politics. He argued that all parties should be allowed to run primary elections in the district freely, without the chiefs’ intervention.

In previous episodes, we mentioned that the primary elections in Mzimba district went south after some voters got angry that their preferred candidates weren’t present. One of those candidates was Vitumbiko Mumba, the Trade Minister and aspiring MP for Mzimba Central. He did not attend the primaries because he was told they would happen on a different day. He got an injunction to stop the election results from being made official and for the primaries to be reconducted.

On Saturday the 24th, local news said the High Court had discharged Mumba’s order because it was obtained through a “breach of the duty of full and frank disclosure”. This means Adamson Kuseri, who got over 260 votes against Mumba’s five, will be representing Mzimba Central at the September general elections.

In the next two years, Malawians may have a digital National Identity Card that they can access on their smartphone.

During the ID4Africa Annual General Meeting held in Ethiopia on Tuesday the 20th, the National Registration Bureau (or NRB) revealed their plans to roll out a digital identity wallet by twenty twenty-six. Mphatso Sambo, the NRB Principal Secretary, said they had already piloted the Digital ID Wallet successfully and were now preparing to introduce it to the public. He said this innovation will change how Malawians access critical services, including healthcare and banking, and help push the government’s national strategy to digitalize government services.

Shifting gears, the Knowledge Systems and Practices program at the Malawi University of Science and Technology is under scrutiny after some graduates said it was irrelevant to Malawi’s current job market, thus making it hard for them to find employment.

The news broke out on Friday the 23rd after Ambrozo Kingsley Namazemba, a graduate and representative of graduates from the twenty twenty-two to twenty twenty-four cohorts, wrote a statement saying that no graduate had been employed since the program was introduced in twenty seventeen, except for only two people who found jobs at the university itself as Associate Professors. The graduates' statement requested the National Council for Higher Education to restructure the program.

Still, some people argued that not all degree-holders secure aligned jobs.

Still on education, the Ministry of Education released a statement on Wednesday the 21st announcing 100 fully-funded scholarship opportunities that the Moroccan government has offered Malawian students for its twenty twenty-five/ twenty twenty-six academic year, which starts in September.

The Ministry said that the scholarships are aimed at undergraduate students pursuing vocational training programs, as well as those seeking to continue their education with postgraduate or professional studies. The scholarships focus on fields including Medical Studies, Engineering, and Agronomy.

Many comments on social media showed excitement, with some users saying that they had already started applying for the scholarship, which will stop receiving applications on the 10th of June.

In other news, on Saturday the 24th, MultiChoice, a local television satellite company, and the Copyright Society of Malawi launched a collaborative anti-piracy initiative aimed at protecting the Malawian creative economy.

They kicked off the initiative with a training session on Tuesday the 20th that saw over twenty participants from the Malawi Police Service and the Ministry of Justice being taught to handle piracy issues. After the training, the police were sent out on a test enforcement operation, and they ended up arresting two suspects who ran illegal media streaming stores.

The police told local media that their training will help them hunt down and arrest similar offenders.

Finally, Blantyre City in the Southern Region was crowned the Cleanest City in Malawi during the nineteenth Local Government Authorities Annual General Assembly, which was held on Thursday the 22nd.

Blantyre is no stranger to this title; it is the third time in a row that it has come out on top of the list, beating other cities like the capital Lilongwe, in the Central Region, and the old city, Zomba in the Southern Region.

Meanwhile, Neno District in the Southern Region was named the Most Improved Council. The Assembly applauded it for progress in improving its operations and implementing government projects.

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

We hope you’re enjoying the update! If you have questions, ideas, or feedback, send us an email at info@rorshok.com.

Pitani bwino!