‘I told my kids not playing so we can save money on soap’

Suzanna Kathumba, a domestic worker in Malawi, spends each day thinking of the ways he can economic in 80,000 kwacha ($ 46; £ 34) a month to support his family.

While she was trap a wet cloth from a bucket of sin in the living room and began by rubbing tables and chairs, she considers her new space to save money.

“I told my youngest kids who weren’t very dirty when playing so we could save soap,” 43-year-old speaks BBC.

“But it’s hard because children are kids, they want to play.”

In the past few months Ms Kathumba, a divorce mother of four working in the capital, Lilongwe, struggling to survive his salary because of the prices of things in the market.

With a little financial support from his ex-husband, he is primarily for home. Most of his money returns to his four children, living in their town on the left of the neighung, about 130km (80 miles) in the northwest capital. The two youngest children are still at school and two old people are unemployed.

In May, Malawi inflation rate is 27.7% – one of the highest in Africa – a reduction from 29.2% in April.

“What strange is that salary remains the same, but the price of commodities continues daily,” says Ms Kathumba.

“The money is done before it comes. We live a very hard life.”

A New Ernst & Young Report Says Malawi is one of the few countries of the world considered to have this “Hyperinflationary economy” – with Burundi, Suda, Suda, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. This is when there is inflation drinking in three years of about 100% or more.

Accounting company says according to the World Economic Outhook Database, which is compiled at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Malawi has three years inflation inflation of 102% of 2025 and 66% for 2026.

Data from World Bank It is also shown that country is one of the poorest in the world. It estimates that 70% of the South African country population lives less than $ 2.15 a day.

The current cost of water-costs leaves many citizens, such as MS Katbumba, with no storage.

“I’m lying when I say I’ve kept some money at the end of the month. I never left,” he said.

“I pay 50,000 Kwacha ($ 29) in school fees each term. Then you need to buy exercise books, food, soap – all from the same small salary. Sugar (1kg) is now 4,500 kwacha ($ 3).”

Economists have set up the current inflation problems with Malawi part of the lack of foreign currency – known as “forex” – on the cliffs.

Malawi often struggled with forex as the country imported more than export.

“We do not export high-value products,” Dr. Bertha Bangara Cikadza, Senior Lecturer of Malawi’s Macroeconomics and the President of the Economics Association of Malawi, speaking BBC.

“We export products such as Maises, Soya beans and sugar, but importing expensive products such as fertilizers, medicine, so we need large amounts of Forex for it,” we say.

Businesses who want to import things say that if they apply banks for forex – in particular US dollars – they are always available.

It presses some to look for US dollars in the black market, which exchange rate is higher than the official rate of 1,750 kwacha for $ 1.

Traders can pay between 4,000 and 5,000 Kwacha for $ 1 – with a knock effect for consumers.

Business owners, like Mohammed Hanif Wakaif, owning a storery store in the capital, saying he lost many customers since the prices have since put prices.

“Selling has a lot of falling. We need to make redinancies,” he told the BBC.

While he regularly imports things for his store, such as office supplies, pen and notepad, the lack of foreign exchange means that he currently seeks to access local items.

“I can’t remember if our banks gave us us,” he said.

Desperate for change, informal merchants carry the streets to protest in February, hundreds block the parliamentary path.

“We really affected, we need to get gain from our businesses,” Steve Magombo, chairman in the chocolate flea market in Lilongwe.

“But the way things are, we fail. The loose failed to buy our commodities.”

Late year announced that an agreement with the $ 175M with an IMF has been suspended temporarily. The four-year loan has been approved on November 2023, with $ 35m to be updated up to date.

“Under the IMF policy, if the reviews are not completed in an 18-month period automatically finishes,” Justin Tyson has completed, “the IMF chief, the head of the IMF of Malawi,, told the BBC.

Mr. Tyson added that “fiscal discipline” has “proved to be difficult to keep in the current environment due to raised pressures”.

However, the Minister of Financial Malawi Simplex Chityola Banda said this is the government’s decision to suspend the loan as a disagreement in terms.

“If you were told that you needed to build reserves but at the same time the country was dry because you didn’t have fuel,” The World Business Report on BBC in the last month.

“We are told to stay in the program, you need to fix fuel prices, but that has a negative impact on the prices of the main commodity.”

In the National Malawi election scheduled in September, the government says it takes several steps to carry prices.

The Minister of Selling is recognized Vitumbiko Mumba that forex should be mean but said that registered businesses can apply for the requirements by Reserve Bank or Financial Ministry. But he also blamed traders for the execution of prices.

“We set an economic economic law and also have a significant goods and services bill to regulate it,” he told the BBC.

Meanwhile, the main opposition set the blame for inflation on the feet of those in power.

Whatever causes the imposition of prices, cost-to-life is likely a large campaign issue.

The people expect their daily struggle in government plans – and wants all solutions that bring lasting economic strength.

“We trust the government for help,” says Ms Kathumbo.

“I hope the politicians remember the less privileged seriousness to make their decisions.”

Jack McBrams added to Lilongwe.