Malawi's president, Prof Arthur Peter Mutharika, has said the economic road ahead will be "rough", acknowledging that foreign exchange shortages remain his most difficult problem and that further taxation will be unpopular but necessary.
Speaking to the state broadcaster MBC on Sunday, the first anniversary of his inauguration, Mutharika said the forex shortage was "a very complicated matter", with "some forces" at work, but insisted the government was "working very hard" on it.
Teams from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were in the country for talks on reviving the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), he said, and securing it would help stabilise the economy.
He was more upbeat on fuel, saying supply had been stable for the past year despite problems with international supply and transport.
On food, he said the government had made it "available to everybody and affordable".
Those claims sit uneasily with recent reporting that fuel queues were returning over the past two weeks, with petrol and diesel prices sharply higher than a year ago. Reports also that 1.9 million people are food insecure, though maize prices have fallen from last year's highs.
Mutharika said recovery would take time, describing his "four F" agenda as a five-year programme, "not just one year".
Higher taxes, he said, would be painful. "I know people don't like paying more taxes… we have to do that, to sacrifice. In the long run we will be able to succeed."
He ended on a sombre note. "There is too much strife and there is too much anger in this country," he said. "There was a time this country was the warm heart of Africa, but that heart is no longer warm."
