LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-On Thursday Malawians celebrated Mother’s Day with dry filling stations as fuel crisis deepens.
Snap visits to some filling stations in the major cities including Lilongwe, Mzuzu, Zomba showed had no fuel but partly Blantyre’s selling points contained the commodity.
The development put pressure on women not to travel long distances including lake districts to celebrate Mother’s Day.
In an interview with The Maravi Post on Friday, October 16, 2026, The Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) has suggested that government should consider raising fuel prices to balance with global rising costs.
The grouping has observed that Malawi’s neighbouring neighbouring countries have already made fuel price adjustments to avert the crisis.
HRCC Board Chairperson, Robert Mkwezalamba observed further that political tension in the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect many countries including landlocked Malawi, forcing them to raise fuel prices.
According to Mkwezalamba, government is not making any profit when bringing fuel into the country since the landing cost is higher than the pump price.
Mkwezalamba said government is grappling with covering the balance between landing cost and pump price to maintain the current fuel price which is the cheapest in Southern Africa.
“Global fuel prices have gone up. Malawi faces forex crisis which is very difficult also to maintain fuel prices locally. Malawi is procuring fuel at a loss.
“Fuel business is a service. This is the reason many business tycoons have pulled out of the business as are operating at loss due to forex crisis. The commodity is purchased at high rate while local prices remain the same”, observes Mkwezalamba.
However, this publication understands that Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) has suspended Automatic Price Mechanism (APM) methodology on fuel price adjustment over unstable fuel supply.
Meanwhile, MERA is reluctantly to adjust fuel prices in fear of public backlash.
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