Experts have advised Malawians to endure the current fuel crisis and find ways of assisting the government in resolving the situation.
This comes as long queues continue to be seen in very few filling stations across the country, despite the announcement by minister of Energy and mining that the problem will normalize by Tuesday last week.
Speaking in an interview with radio Islam, Dr. Suzgo Kaunda an academician from the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, says its high time Malawians started to think beyond politics and understand that the current fuel situation is as a result of the war in the middle-east which has also affected many countries.
“I think what they gave us was just a tentative arrangement, but there might be some reasons behind this and it could be some logistical challenges because sometimes, logistics may cause fuel to delays as you know we rely upon fuel from other countries so logistics could be one of the main reasons” he said.
Dr. Kaunda added that lack of ports may also be among the contributing factors to fuel scarcity as there may be some logistical challenges affecting the timely importation and delivery of fuel into the country.
He therefore advised Malawians who have been pushing government to immediately resolve the fuel scarcity problem, to understand the situation and put politics aside if the country is to move out of this challenge.
Meanwhile a social expert Joe Maele says the current fuel scarcity challenge is beyond the war in the Middle East but poor strategies that have led into the scarcity of forex and the overall economic situation as there has been no trade balance.
In an interview with Radio Islam, Maele says Malawians should understand that fuel challenges may not end soon, as it has been there even during the previous leaderships due to various reasons.
“Let’s leave aside the Iran war, previously we had issue of fuel scarcity and they said the challenges were as a result of war in Ukraine so the war in middle East should be put a side but our economic structures are not helping the country, as long as we do not change our structures in economy, this problem will last long”, explained Maele.
He cited excess importation of luxury goods including vehicles, poor exportation strategies and lack of comprehensive Agri-business mechanisms as being some of the major factors affecting the availability of forex which results in the scarcity of fuel in the country.
“Secondly, we have far much more cars in Malawi than we need so the consumption of fuel once it comes in is taken up in a shortest time creating another demand for replenishment so at this point in time we Malawians, have to accept the reality that this situation will not improve” he added.
Maele added that ever since the late Kamuzu Banda was deposed out of power, Malawi no longer produces enough crops like tea, cowpeas, cotton among others which he said has resulted into perpetual trade imbalances as the country spends more on importing goods other than exporting, resulting into shortage of forex.
He added that the proliferation of informal practices in the exportation farm produce perpetrate by some selfish individuals has also impacted on the country’s loss of foreign exchange adding most of such exports are done by individuals or companies that are not one hundred percent Malawian.
According to Maele, whatever is said concerning fuel is a mere political rhetoric intended to impress the voters, other than addressing the real problems, hence asking the citizenry to join hands and look for better ways of addressing the challenge, other than pushing the government to provide quick solutions.
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