Joe Kambale has been stitching men’s suits from his living room in Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial hub, for the last eight years. Sometimes he makes about K200,000 ($173) a week, decent wages in a country where half of the population lives on $1 daily or less, according to data from Malawi’s National Statistical Office.
He was often so swamped with work that he was sometimes unable to take on new customers for up to a month. But in the last two weeks, the 35-year-old tailor’s pair of sewing machines have been idle because demand is dwindling.
And now he is finding it hard to cater to the needs of his wife and one-year-old son.
“The high cost of living has driven clients away,” he said, with a look of despair in his eyes. A month ago, two of his most loyal customers suspended orders indefinitely, telling him that they are now prioritising spending their earnings on basic needs.
The rising cost of materials is also eating into the small profit margins for Kambale’s business, which is run on a shoestring budget.
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Life in this southern African country of 20 million people has become harder in recent years.
Since 2021, the country has been experiencing acute foreign currency shortages, a consequence of reduced exports, experts say. This has led to a scarcity of essential goods such as food, medicine, fertiliser and fuel.
Analysts like Betchani Tchereni, associate professor of economics and dean at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, say Malawi is still feeling the effects of Covid and the war in Ukraine on the global supply chain.
Since the conflict began in February 2022, the price of bread has increased by at least 50 percent.
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“The pandemic destabilised tobacco export and when the war started, the prices of chemical fertiliser skyrocketed, meaning that we couldn’t afford the quantities that we needed any more.
“This also came at a time global inflation in general went up, meaning that we couldn’t afford many imports. It further drained our forex and led to inflation,” he said.
To stabilise dwindling forex reserves, Malawi’s central bank devalued the kwacha by 25 percent last May. As of this October, the currency had further weakened by 4.87 percent.
Due to rocketing year-on-year inflation – 28.6 percent as of September – everything from food to electricity has gone above the reach of most people.
For instance, Malawi’s main staple, maize, has increased by 15 percent, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.—Al Jazeera
