EDITORIAL: How Long Must Malawians Suffer Over a Packet of Sugar?
How long, Malawi? How long will citizens be subjected to the humiliating spectacle of standing in endless queues—begging for sugar as though it were a luxury and not a basic household staple? How long must we endure silence from officials whose duty is to protect the consumer, not watch idly as vultures circle around scarcity?
Let’s be brutally honest: this sugar crisis is no longer just an economic hiccup—it’s a national disgrace. What’s unfolding in supermarkets and street corners across the country is state-sanctioned exploitation, wrapped neatly in official silence and bureaucratic impotence.
A thriving black market now controls sugar distribution, and the beneficiaries aren’t struggling mothers or small business owners—but opportunistic traders and a new breed of middlemen who call themselves “queue professionals.” They’ve turned public desperation into personal gain, stuffing bales of sugar into pickups while the rest of the country clutches empty baskets. This is the portrait of a nation abandoned.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry has gone AWOL, the Competition and Fair Trading Commission (CFTC) is hiding behind “pending responses,” and Illovo—armed with 97 percent market dominance—dares blame the weather. Spare us.
Malawians are being told to believe that rains delayed factory operations—but what weather pattern accounts for the deliberate, calculated hoarding and the brazen reselling of sugar at K6,000 a packet? What kind of storm empowers traders to double their profits while bakers, tea rooms, and everyday families crumble under the weight of artificial scarcity?
This is not a supply chain failure—it is a governance failure. A moral failure. A regulatory collapse.
Where is the outrage from the Minister of Trade, Vitumbiko Mumba? Where is the consumer protection that the CFTC is paid to uphold? The sugar crisis has exposed a grotesque void in leadership and a sickening culture of complicity, where scarcity is weaponized and profit is prioritized over people.
And Illovo? A company that controls nearly the entire market and has the audacity to point fingers elsewhere? If ever there was a time for government to act decisively, this is it. A near-monopoly in a struggling economy should come with tighter accountability, not apologies and press statements.
Malawians are exhausted. We are tired of excuses, of deferred answers, of WhatsApp messages that “still need clearance.” We are tired of watching the few profit while the many suffer. We are tired of leaders who only appear when there’s ribbon to cut, not when there’s pain to confront.
This is not just about sugar—it’s about dignity. It’s about justice. And it’s about time those in power stopped sweet-talking us with empty reassurances and started acting like they care.
Until then, the bitter taste of this sugar crisis will remain a daily reminder of a nation that has lost its way.
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