The Malawi Government has moved in to regulate and control the forex trade market in the country.
This comes in the wake of an influx of illegal forex trading which is suspected to have contributed to the scarcity of forex in the country in recent times.
Addressing journalists in Lilongwe, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Simplex Chithyola said government will start to enforce the Exchange Control Act of 1984 which among other things demands that all the forex traders should display evidence of authorization or licenses at their business places.
Chithyola emphasized that dealing in forex exchange without the authorization of the Reserve Bank is illegal under this Exchange Control Act.
Meanwhile, the Minister has announced that government through the Fiscal Police, the Financial Intelligence Authority and the National Intelligence Services and the MDF will commence a crackdown on illegal forex trading on all the markets and county’s boarders.
This move is long overdue as there were increasing cases of trading of illegal forex on parallel money market which made it difficult to align with the official exchange rate.
Before the announcement of 44% devaluation last week, the Malawi Kwacha was trading at K1,700 on the official market and K1,888 against the US dollar on the parallel market which was a misalignment and affected the local currency’s official market value.
