Will explains why with their high salaries and flashy cars, some NGOs are jeopardising a delicate economy.

I have just come back from a few meetings in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Blantyre, Malawi's financial capital, is an exciting and prosperous city that breathes business. Lilongwe is a dull city that's overfed on aid. My internet connection's far too slow to ascertain exactly how much aid flows into the tree lined boulevards of Lilongwe - but it's a hell of a lot.

I'm not an aid detractor, as my last blog affirms, but walking the streets of Lilongwe, I have the overwhelming urge to send a strongly-worded letter to Bono. Everywhere you look, Western NGO workers drive around in the latest top-of-the-range four-by-four demi-tanks, with their organisation or charity's name emblazoned across the sides, without a hint of embarrassment at the irony.

It's not just the cars: NGO workers are paid a lot. For some reason, international aid organisations have got it into their heads that if they don’t pay Western wages to foreign workers, people won’t come. Now, I'm not saying Western charity workers in Malawi should be paid K5,000 (£20) a month and made to live in houses with no electricity, running water or toilet; growing their own food and selling whatever surplus they have at the local market just to be able to afford to eat - but do charity workers really need to be paid Western salaries in Malawi, where GDP is about 1/600th of that of the UK. After all - they're not bankers.

The result is an extravagant aristocracy of aid workers. Hoards of Western professionals live it up in the expensive restaurants and bars in the city, rubbing shoulders with diplomats and driving to the few nightclubs in their  brand new Toyotas.

Aside from the extravagance, paying people tens of thousands of pounds a year is affecting the whole economy of Lilongwe: for one, house rental values are soaring. I spoke with a few Western NGO workers who said their organisation was spending $2,000 a month for their houses. Later, I asked a local businessman how much he would expect to pay for a similar-sized house in the same part of the city - and he told me $600 a month, maximum. He was astonished when I told him what they paid.

Office rent is also going up sharply: space in the most expensive office block in town now sells at K2,000 per square metre compared with K1,500 in Blantyre. When I went to that building, many of the offices are rented out by NGOs.

I think the biggest problem this trend is causing is in the labour market. Obviously, it would be entirely inappropriate to pay Western staff more than locals, so NGOs have to pay local staff the same wages (although a friend of mine who went for an interview at an international donor-funded private school was asked if he minded being paid less than the Western staff. He said yes. He didn’t get the job).

Consequentially, there's a brain drain away from the private sector. A friend of mine is setting up a big-budget processing plant and was looking to recruit the top talent. He ended up having to pay over $120,000 a year to tempt a COO away from a charity: an astonishing amount over here.  Through their irresponsible attitude to money, NGOs and charities are starving the economy they're supposed to be developing of the talent that can develop it and you can't help but wonder how Lilongwe is going to wean itself off this aid addiction.

Will explains why rather than reducing the amount of aid money we give to Malawi, we need to change how it’s spent.

I was reading one of the national newspapers over here last week and an article that quoted a recent piece in The Express caught my eye.  It was notable not only for the fact that opinions from The Express is rarely read outside Liverpool – let alone in sub-Saharan Africa – but it also reflected a seemingly growing wave of popular opinion in the UK. 

Headlined ‘The Great Aid Rip-Off’, the article claimed that the UK taxpayer was funding the lavish lifestyles of Malawi’s leaders. The article was absurd and completely misrepresented the Malawian government, dubbing the (albeit imperfect – but name one that is perfect) democracy a ‘regime’ and, without any foundation, calling the democratically elected (and very economically able) president ‘one of Africa’s most notorious leaders’. Er – can you name him?

It’s natural that, during tough economic times, questions are asked about foreign aid – and The Express article follows on from a recent editorial from Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph calling for foreign aid to be withdrawn in order to fund a Trident replacement. Now I’m no pacifist, but it’s hard not to notice the irony in condemning people to death in order to build something that will condemn even more people to death.

If the critics could see the impact foreign aid is having over here, I think they’d change their tune by at least an octave or two. Indeed, the few pence per year that each of us shells out for foreign aid probably has more impact on people’s lives across the world than any other expenditure.

To appease the critics, we might need to rethink how the aid money is spent. Malawi and a number of other countries in sub-Saharan Africa represent one of the few remaining areas of real economic growth in the world. The region hasn’t yet had its economic revolution. The form of that revolution is not yet clear: In Britain it was industrial, Japan technological, the US somewhere in between the two. The likelihood is that in Malawi it will be agricultural and come in an age where food is increasingly scarce. What’s any economic revolution if not a promotion to global trade?

Development economists are finally shedding the ‘trap’ theories arguing that countries like Malawi are permanently stuck in a rut. These theories are obviously nonsense, especially when you look at Malawian growth rates over the past three years. The biggest barriers to growth, though, remain skills and investment. Whether the lack of capital is the inability to develop a large-scale processing project or for a small village trader to install solar panels in order to trade later, it is significantly stunting economic growth. At the same time, lots of people over here lack the skills or confidence to realise the potential of their businesses.

Why, then, does UK Aid not look to ease these barriers to growth with the provision of a venture capital fund? For all the questions surrounding China’s involvement in Malawi, one thing it does understand (that we don’t) is that Malawi is a market, and one with the potential for significant growth. 

I am not suggesting we take profits out of Malawi: that wouldn’t help at all. But I think it should be taking equity stakes in businesses, putting advisers on the board, helping these businesses grow and regaining its investment when the business is afloat so that it can continue to invest elsewhere and appease the Heffers (and Express readers) of this world.  

Will is learning quickly that Malawians may not always be reliable - but at least they're honest about it.

I had a typically Malawian experience last week when I was sending 600 magazines out with a local transport company. Emblazoned across the signs all over the site was the phrase: “here today, there tomorrow”.  And so, this being on a Wednesday afternoon, it was with confidence that I expected the magazines to be delivered on Thursday.

Confirming that my confidence was well placed, I asked the chap writing up the invoice when it would be delivered.

Blowing out his cheeks in a manner implying deep thought, he completed this exhalation and said: 'Should be there by Saturday, possibly.'

'Saturday?' I exclaimed, 'But what about that?' gesturing to the three-foot proclamation behind him.

'Oh,' he said in all seriousness. 'That’s just a sign.'

Now, while I don’t think it was completely unreasonable of me to infer from their motto that it was not beyond the realms of possibility that the firm offered next day delivery, it did get me thinking about the numerous mottos and company names that brighten up many a day.

Would you for example, want to learn to drive with the Afterlife Driving School? Indeed, religious connotations account for many of the great business names, 'If God Says Yes, Who Can Say No Grocery' must have been a great job for the sign writer. Also, I can confirm that the chips are not as tasty as the implied illustriousness of the Lord at the 'God is Great Chip Shop'.

Then there is the downright honest. I am sure that half of the company name is correct at a carpenters called 'Slow but Sure' and I am sure many are keen to meet the proprietor of the 'Stolen Kisses Fabulosity [sic]' jeweler. In addition, I have seen a couple of 'non-profit shops' on my travels, which I imagine to be more an analysis of the bottom line rather than the donation of profit.

However, the crown of the best motto must go to a bus that plies the road from Blantyre to Mzuzu. I say a bus. In fact it is a lorry that carries a container converted to a bus with all the comfort and efficiency that must come with such a method of transport.

But despite the limitations of such a conversion its motto is a work of art and one that, as it chugs off on the 18 hour journey to Blantyre, I have no doubt that all of its passengers will whole-heartedly agree with. For emblazoned across the back of the bus in huge capital letters is the motto: 'I feel like flying'.

I'm not convinced mobiles are necessarily a boon for Malawi. People here just can't afford to run them.
 
It seems that almost everybody has a mobile phone in Malawi. Drive out to a remote village and you will see adverts for mobile phone credits and points to recharge mobile phones from home made devices based on car batteries.
 
It is perhaps the most blatant example of a technology leap enjoyed by Africa. In a continent where landlines are sparse in most countries, mobile phones enable people to communicate where traditional phone infrastructure would never be built.
 
Development economists are falling over themselves to point to the benefits of mobile phones in the developing world. Citing examples of Somali herdsmen phoning ahead to find out the prices in two different markets before deciding which to sell their livestock, these economists hail the mobile phone as a bedrock of economic development, pointing to all sort of statistics that for every addition x number of mobile phones in use, GDP rises by y.
 
However, I am not so convinced that mobile phones are the Holy Grail of economic advance. There are not many Somali herdsmen in Africa and there are none in Malawi. In this country, the arguments for more efficient markets assume a level of mobility that, in my experience, simply does not exist.
 
In fact, I'd argue that in Malawi, mobile phones are actually stunting economic growth. Mobile phone credit here is horrifically expensive. A K250 credit (about £1.20) will last you around three minutes if you are calling a different network or a landline. This in a country where the average wage is around K7000 a month, and that's in urban areas; in villages, those few that have access to a regular income will earn a lot less than that (even in urban areas the wage is considerably lower for many people: a friend of mine told me that his wife, a trainee teacher, earns just K2000 a month and works full time; that's a lot of work for a 30 minute conversation with your mother-in-law).
 
An expat friend likened the mobile phone industry over here to the Nestle milk scandal of the 1970s. This is perhaps a bit extreme, but he does have a point. My wife, who works as a pediatrician at the local hospital, says she regularly sees children brought in suffering from malnutrition - yet the mothers of the children are texting away on their mobile phones. Each text costs K10; a bag of maize is around K40.
 
Prices for credit continue to rise at well above inflation. Lack of competition is part of the problem. When we arrived in February there were adverts everywhere for G-Mobile: 'Coming soon', they proudly announced. It hasn’t come. Last I heard, they'd been given an extension on their license to produce the goods by May. Then, as is so often the case over here, nothing.
 
But it can't just be that - both of the incumbent providers are struggling to make a profit too. The prices are an inevitable consequence of an environment where contracts can't be granted for a myriad of reasons, ranging from a lack of security to an inability to bill people who live in villages with no addresses. Instead, providers must rely on a complicated network of scratch card distribution, selling credit in uneconomically low units.
 
There is no doubt that the mobile phone is an important part of development, and I would not for a moment want to deprive the many that can afford to operate a mobile phone without sacrifice. But I wonder the technology has come too soon for rural Malawi, where providers are unable to provide a service at low enough prices to make it an ethical sell to people surviving on significantly less than a dollar a day.
 

Our man in Malawi ponders the significance of property ownership.

Further to my last letter on my trip to the village of Enyezini, I thought it would be worth noting another point of interest that emerged from the visit: property rights. I had always read that with correct titles to property, development would inevitably follow. The argument stands to reason, a business or homeowner can use the property to borrow against gaining much needed capital to grow his business or buy good associated with development.

Armed with this knowledge I dutifully asked everyone if they owned their property, could they prove it, and why therefore they weren't realising their ambitions with loans from banks. The people I spoke to didn't see the link between property ownership and borrowing and it wasn't until I had the honour of having a cup of tea and a bowl of rice in the house of the chief of the village that I understood why my questions were misguided. Posing him the same question, he took me outside. 'How much do you think my house is worth?' he asked.
 
It was a big house by Malawian standards with a large sitting room and at least five or six other rooms. Equating this to my experience of houses in Mzuzu and reducing the urban premium I supposed was placed on these dwellings, I suggested the figure of around K250,000 (£1,200).

'Ok,' he said. 'Now tell me who you think would have the money and the want to buy it. And why would someone not just build another house anywhere here,' he said gesturing the across the stunning view of undeveloped land in the many miles around.

It made sense: what good is proof of property ownership if there's no one to buy it? According to the City Assembly of Mzuzu there isn't a single outstanding mortgage on any property in the city of 160,000 inhabitants.

One of my employees told me he bought the plot of land for his house in the city for K25,000 (£120) and built his house with almost no cost. When I asked him how much he thought it was worth now, he look baffled, it was not something he considered. To him, it wasn't an investment to sell.

The reality is that without buyers, the houses are worth nothing and perhaps property ownership is not as relevant in rural Malawi as I originally thought. In the city the odd buyer may come along and properties do appear to change hands but in rural Malawi, that isn't the case - and with a strong urban pull, it's difficult to see that changing any time soon.

In which Will gets a taste for the more daring side of enterprise.

Rural Malawians are among the poorest people in the world in terms of financial income. The lion’s share of these villages, which host 85% of the population of Malawi, have no electricity, paved roads or running water.

Living in a city, albeit a small town by UK standards, it's not often I get to see rural Malawi. But the other day I was invited to visit the village of Enyezini, about 20km west of Mzuzu to write an article for my magazine on the rural economy.

It was absolutely fascinating to see how business operates under such conditions and the huge difference small changes could make to the economy of a village. Take the case of Mr Chikoza, a resident of Mzuzu, who two years ago decided to start running a taxi service linking Enyezini with Mzuzu.

The economy of the village was instantly transformed. Local traders told me that before, they had to bring goods in by bicycle from Ekwendeni, a small trading town 12km to the north, and as a result the volume of goods was limited to just a few bags per visit, which meant products had to be small and portable. With the taxi service, they can now bring in a huge array and volume of goods, and shops have sprung up all over the village selling everything from paraffin to clothes.

Chugging along in Mr Chikoza’s battered old Land Rover (that not only looks like it was manufactured during the Second World War, but also appears to have had considerable front-line service), it's hard to see how he makes any money from the service. He charges just K200 (about 70p) for the one-hour, 20km journey; chugging along, chatting amiably with his passengers as he peers through the cracks in the windscreen with a jerry can of petrol between his legs connected directly to the engine via a small pipe. You're basically traveling in a very jolly bomb.

But with the aid of the service, the village has big plans. It wants to establish itself as a trading post for the smaller villages in its surrounding area and is building a mobile market for that purpose. Shops are springing up everywhere and it's easy to agree with the traders' optimistic views on the economic growth of the village.

These small steps are vital to the growth of the economy of rural Malawi, and it struck me how we view development as multi-billion dollar aid donations when in fact so much can be achieved with a small initiative such as Mr Chikoza’s taxi service.

That's not to say that the village isn't crying out for infrastructure development. When I asked the chief of the village what three things he would ask for from the president, he replied: 'electricity, roads and water'.

In which Will introduces British cuisine to the streets of Malawi.
 
There are many things that one cannot buy in Mzuzu, the northern capital city that we live in. Take out a dictionary, open at a random page, find the first noun you see and the chances are you cannot get it in Mzuzu.

Most of the stuff we don’t miss: it's funny how quickly you accept reality. I have not so far craved a skinny latte, neither have I longed to see the latest Hollywood hit. However, the fact that you cannot buy a sandwich in Mzuzu fills my life with an emptiness that only a decent BLT could fill. I'm not a man of many principles, but I do believe that access to a decent sandwich is a fundamental human right, a human right that has so far been deprived to the 160,000 citizens of Mzuzu. I have decided to take affirmative action.

A friend of mine runs a local bakery and after hours of my selling him the benefits of sandwiches, he's agreed to take the plunge and convert part of his bakery into a sandwich shop. I'm part-funding the venture from the profits of the magazine.

It's an interesting challenge. The staple diet in Malawi is nsima, a maize-based stodge that people have for lunch and dinner, garnished with some relish or dende, which is usually a variety of beans. Lunch is an institution, and the leisurely lunches that people have over here are on such a scale that even a London–based journalist in the 1980s would have found the time taken impressive.

From 12-2, you won’t find anyone doing anything but cooking or eating nsima, in addition to the obligatory sitting around for a couple of hours that inevitably accompanies the meal. Trying to introduce the concept of the sandwich to this crowd is a tough sell. In addition, it's odd to have to introduce the concept of something that's so commonplace in our culture.

For advice, I turned to my friend and advertising genius Dan Hauck, who came up with a number of concepts and campaigns. The tagline we settled on to promote the new venture was: 'the sandwich: for people who don’t stop'.

Now, herein lies a key challenge: there aren't many people who don’t stop in Mzuzu. On the contrary, most of the population of the town are in fact very much stopped most of the time. But I believe that the sandwich is best launched as an aspirational product, targeting the few offices and ever-increasing number of successful businesspeople, and the contingent of educated and highly ambitious young professionals.

We launch next week and I will be sure to update you on the progress. I am motivated by the fact that if I can achieve one thing, while I am out here, indeed, achieve one thing in my entire life, successfully bringing to sandwich to Mzuzu will ensure an eventual retirement free from regret.

In which Will finally gets his driving license, after 14 years of trying...

One of my many failings has always been my inability to drive. Having failed my theory so many times that I didn't even get round to taking a proper test, I had resigned myself to the reality that some people are born to be chauffeured, and I am perhaps fortunate enough to be among them.

However, fearless after the many challenges I've faced doing business out here, and persuaded by my wife, who I think was getting a little tired of driving 700km to Blantyre with me relaxing in the passenger seat, I decided that the time had come to take the plunge and learn to drive.

'Why don’t you just buy a license?' a friend asked me. 'You only have to give the examiner K20,000 to get a license and the lessons are going to cost you around that anyway.'

He had a good point, but I was adamant that if I was going to drive, I was going to do it honourably. Not least because I accept that if the Malawi Roads Authority deemed me unfit to drive, perhaps I really shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.

It soon emerged that my stoicism would be rewarded. I'm not one to criticise my teachers, but I’m sure that if I'm to drive on some of the most dangerous roads in the world, at some point it's going to be necessary to go above 30km/h and indeed to do something other than going round a roundabout twice and reversing round a corner.

Apparently such fancies are deemed entirely ancillary to the basics of driving - which, of course, are roundabouts and reversing round corners. The test used to entail hill starts, driving on the open road, parallel parking and other more complex manoeuvres, but these were dropped because too many people were failing.
Or rather, according to my instructor, when people failed they just drove anyway and never came back to retake the test. And the authorities deemed it better to have a test that anyone can pass than one that no-one bothers to take. So in order to ensure success, one just practices the set test route again and again. Roundabout, reverse, roundabout, reverse, roundabout, reverse.

After the triumph of finally passing my theory test, which I have to admit was a little less thorough than the ones I have failed previously ('What does it mean when the robot says green?' 'What does this sign mean?' [pointing to a sign that says “stop”]), I was ready for my practical test.

Regardless of its apparent simplicity, for those seven minutes, the pressure was immense. Knowing that if I hit someone there was a small chance of failing, my concentration was total. However, it paid off and I am delighted to report that I passed. So after 14 years of trying, I finally have my driving license. Now all I have to do is learn to drive.

Despite his best efforts, 70% of Will's invoices are still unpaid four weeks after their due date...

It has been a hugely frustrating, unproductive couple of weeks. My invoices were due on the 31 May. No one had paid on that date, but my terms were only 21 days so I was not too surprised. As I write this, four weeks later, I have still only been paid by three of my ten creditors. This despite repeated assurances that the money was being paid today/had been paid/will be paid tomorrow. To be fair to the three that did pay, it only took one or two follow up calls. The others have taken more than 10 each. It is mind-numbingly frustrating.

Each day, I wake up tired and annoyed, having mentally tortured a roster of people during my agonised sleep. I then come to work at 7:30 and start calling the companies who owe me money. Without fail, I will be assured that my invoice is to be paid that day/ was paid yesterday. I then go to the bank and queue up for an hour, only to find that yesterday's assurances were false. (Amazingly, and to add to the frustration, my bank says there is no way of telling who has paid a cheque in – that is going to cause problems down the line considering all my invoices are for the same amount!). I go back to my office and redial.

There are many great things about doing business in Malawi. At this stage, few make up for the frustration of the repeated false assurances. The phrase, "I will call you back in ten minutes", means "I will not call you back". The phrase, "The invoice has been paid", means "The invoice has not been paid". The phrase “We have sold ten adverts”, means (on deadline day) “we have sold no adverts” (cue: mad panic, more sleepless nights, contract cancellation). It is a deep irony that doing business in one of the least stressed-out countries in the world is the most stressful thing that one can do.

And so, each day, I rewrite my cashflow forecasts and watch my reserves dwindle to nothing. The cheque for the printing went out this week, leaving me with just K3,400 in my account. I am owed K670,000. These are not small traders that owe the money, who might be delaying due to cashflow issues - these are banks, insurance companies and large motor companies. It is a nightmare. This is pagono, pagono on a monumental scale and it is making life doing business here almost impossible.

It has been a bad couple of weeks. But you have to put things in perspective. We live right on the outskirts of Mzuzu, and at the end of a trying day my wife and I walk out into the villages surrounding the city. The cacophony of laughing children and their shouts of “Hey azungu, I am fine, how are you?” (literally: hey “white man” – although the racial connotations are not comparable with our views in the UK) combined with the smiles and greetings from everyone we pass never fails to lift our spirits. The happiness and warmth of local people here, many of whom live without running water or electricity and facing threats to their health and families that I cannot even begin to contemplate, puts it all in perspective - and makes you realise there is more to life than unpaid invoices!

Will still can't work out why the Chinese are pumping money into resource-light Malawi...

Chinese interest in Africa is well-documented. To detractors, it represents a neo-colonialist invasion aimed at stealing the natural resources of a country; to advocates, China is providing invaluable infrastructure to countries in need of development. To me, at least in the case of Malawi, it is completely baffling.

I have asked myself (and others) many times why China is investing in Malawi. And investing it certainly is. Last month, the President of Malawi opened the stunningly kitsch new Chinese-built parliament building - a structure that now dominates Capital Hill in Lilongwe, with its neo-classical architecture and grandeur that would embarrass an American. It looks like it's made from plastic, and if the Chinese goods that I have bought in Mzuzu recently are anything to go by, it probably is. In addition to the new parliament building, the Chinese are erecting a five-star hotel in the city, exactly what Malawi is in desperate need of! In its defence, it has also involved in the construction of a number of roads across Malawi, which the country certainly does need.

But why? Why on earth is China interested in a country whose natural resources could fit in a small bucket? Chinese traders are flooding into the country. In Mzuzu alone, almost half of the retailers on the main street are now Chinese-owned, selling goods for almost nothing. (Incidentally, everyone has a word to say on the dubious quality of these goods. I recently bought a multi-plug adapter. Pre-warned about the quality issues, I decided to go for the most expensive - it was still pretty cheap. I don’t know if the other ones would have lasted for even less than ten minutes before blowing up, so it's hard to say if my extravagance was worthwhile.) Local traders are not happy. Rents are soaring (one local trader told me his rent had more than doubled in six months) and the word is that the Chinese are bringing thousands of dollars in cash with them to put deposits down on shops and turf out the incumbents.

Now, I'm a free marketer, so I'd normally welcome this extra competition. However, there is a strong suspicion that the Chinese are not paying tax. The goods are so cheap, it's difficult to see how they can be. (The other day, I bought three large batteries shipped over from China for K40, which is about 18p. How on earth can you even ship something from China for 18p?) Others claim that the Chinese are criminals expelled from China to start a new life in Mzuzu. Possible, but unlikely.

The most likely answer is that these infrastructure 'gifts' are not gifts at all. Those I have spoken with in higher positions of authority claim that the Chinese government is loaning the Malawian government the money to build these projects - loans that it will take many years to repay. But the government and media appear to maintain that these are gifts. In fact, a recent article in a national newspaper argued that the Chinese are better friends than the British, as they do not make the country release homosexuals from prison and instead just build lovely new parliament buildings. Comments from readers with inside info on the Chinese in Malawi would certainly set this confused mind to rest!

In which Will discovers some major shortcomings of the Malawi postal system...

Dear MT,

My last letter was a celebration of the fact that things in Malawi don't quite work in the same way they do in the West. This one, I am afraid to report, is not.

The task: mailing out 700 copies of a magazine. In the UK, this is simple. Get your printer to polywrap it with the addresses printed on the polywrap and send it via downstream access at a low cost with guaranteed next day delivery. An e-mail with an Excel attachment; that's all it takes. Easy! But not in Malawi. Oh no.

For a start, printers don't do polywrapping. Which was fine, I wasn't expecting them to. However, no one in the city I live in sells address labels either, so all the envelopes need to be written out by hand. Before I did this, I thought it worth enquiring at the Post Office as to how much it would cost to send. No reduced-rate downstream access, having to handwrite envelopes and suddenly the value of each recipient is called into question. At this point I should explain that Malawi does not have a postal system like we do in the UK. Instead of door to door deliveries, it has a postal box system (most people live on roads with no names) so essentially my magazines were only going to three places: Lilongwe Post Office, Blantyre Post Office and Mzuzu Post Office (in which I was standing).

Upon being told I could bulk mail the envelopes at a low cost of 5000 kwacha, about £20, I set about writing the envelopes. 700 hand-written envelopes later (writing really does hurt your hand when you haven't written anything more extensive than 'eggs, milk, bread' in one go for the past 10 years), I was ready to go.

Arriving at the Post Office and having lugged in all the copies (beyond the point of no return), I was told that in fact the bulk mail service was only for letters being delivered to the same place and I would therefore have to pay 150 kwacha per magazine. A total of 105,000 kwacha (over £400). 'But they're going to the same places', I protested. 'Three post offices, one load each. In fact, 150 of the magazines aren't even going anywhere,' I said, pointing to the row of post boxes six feet away from me.

But no, they all had to go to the same post box if I wanted bulk mail. As I had promised my advertisers these magazines would be delivered, I had to pay the fee - an extortionate sum in Malawi, equivalent to the monthly wages of ten administration staff. I reluctantly agreed and the man disappeared for about 15 minutes.

'He's probably gone to get stamps,' I thought jokingly, looking at the enormous pile of magazines - before a sudden jolting realisation that the chance of this was actually very high. 'Oh God, he's gone to get some stamps'.

Sure enough, he came back with his arms laden with stamps. 'We don't have any fifties I am afraid. So you're going to have to put a hundred, two twenties and a ten on these,' he said jovially.

That's ok, I wasn't planning on doing anything ever again. 'You know, you really should get a franking machine,' I said, desperately wishing that I wasn't condemned to this miserable fate before me.

'We have. But it's on maintenance,' he replied.

'B*****d,' I thought.

So I licked and stuck 2800 stamps, for four hours. Amused only by conversations such as 'So, Gordon Brown is your new Prime Minister' (he'd obviously been using the local postal system to receive his news from the UK).

By the time I'd finished, I'd missed the post for that day. But that wasn't a problem; in Malawi you think of the post in terms of weeks, not days.

'When is the franking machine coming back?' I asked, rasping with my swollen tongue and hoping that I wouldn't have to go through that ordeal ever again.

'Tomorrow,' he said, with a perfectly straight face.

In which Will tries to work out when a bribe is not a bribe - and weighs up the positives of corruption.

Dear MT,   
I had been warned about corruption before I came out here. A friend who runs a business in Uganda had told me to expect to have to pay my way when starting out. Ever the ethicist, I came out here resolute that I wasn't going to indulge in any form of corruption, no matter how frustrating not doing so may be (although I'd pay all the money I have for the printers to actually deliver the bloody magazine - four weeks and counting).

Contrary to my friend's predictions, my resolve has thus far not been tested (although I may have inadvertently bribed someone in the Post Office to find a spare PO box for me: it was all very confusing and I don't suspect it counts if you didn't know you were doing it - surely corruption has to be mutual?). Even when collecting an Apple CPU from customs (where the official guessed the value of the strange box before him, lowered it in response to my protestation and then asked me what it was while I was paying the tax), I have never even acknowledged an opportunity for a bribe.

That said, when doing business out here, there are things that aren't quite right. These aren't necessarily challenges - indeed, for a fledgling publishing business, these quirks (I shy from the word corruptions) can present an opportunity. During my last trip to Blantyre, while waiting for the printers to disregard another assurance on when the magazine would be ready, I decided to pay a visit to a bigwig media buyer.   

I went to see him to ask how I could get his clients into the magazine. Having explained the situation, he paused, got up and closed the door, and then coyly suggested I outsource all my advertising to his company.

How much do you want to make next issue?" he asked, growing in confidence at the proposal. Upon giving my response, his eyes lit up. "OK, I will guarantee you 20% of advertising above what your target is and take 10% of the revenues," he proposed.

"That sounds interesting," I said. "But how do I know that people will book with you?"

"Because they are my clients and I control their advertising spend," he responded.   

And to think that corruption has such a bad reputation when it comes to doing business...   

Yours,   
William

In which Will sees Blantyre's flourishing banks at close quarters – and the magazine’s progress is pagono, pagono…

Dear MT,

At the moment, I’m in Blantyre, the financial capital of Malawi, to launch the magazine. Or was: the printers had forgotten to print the magazine, so the launch has been delayed, which is a bit embarrassing. I do have assurances, though that it will be ready tomorrow. Not that I can be sure. Pagono, pagono.

The unexpected time off has, though, given me a chance to explore the city. Sitting in the beautiful garden of a guest house in the centre of the capital in glorious sunshine, it’s easy to forget I’m in one of the poorest countries in the world. Blantyre breathes business: as suited businessmen rush around, the shell of the enormous new headquarters of the National Bank looms above me. It’s vibrant and exciting, and thoroughly dominated by the banking sector.  

The new National Bank building is one of many the company’s erecting across Malawi. In fact, almost all the new buildings across the country are glistening new banks, towering above market stalls and dilapidated shops and offices. The banking industry is phenomenally wealthy compared to the rest of the country – and it’s easy to see why.

Take my personal account, for example: it’s actually a savings account, but we chose it because it offers a better interest rate than the standard current account. It pays 2.5% a year, roughly in line with what others pay. The central bank rate, on the other hand, is 15%. For the privilege of being 12.5% poorer each year, I pay 800 Kwacha (£3.70) a month. If I wanted a loan, I could expect to pay around 30% - and outside the banking system, I would be looking at 50%.

In the UK, we think lack of competition in the banking sector is detrimental to the consumer. That argument isn’t borne out in Malawi: there are 12 national banks, and only about 19% of the population have bank accounts – which means just 2.7m people fund the profits of 12 banks.

And those profits are huge – last year, National Bank paid out K1.2bn (£5.5m) in dividends on a pre-tax profit of K5.6bn (£26bn), which means the profits of one of 12 banks was equivalent to 1.15% of GDP for the whole of Malawi. Yesterday, the state-owned Malawi Savings Bank posted a profit of K865.5m (£4m) (up 101% from the previous year - crisis, what crisis?). That’s an astonishing performance on revenues of K2.1bn (£9.7m).

People here don’t have pensions or investment instruments, so the money’s largely circulated around a small group of politicians and professionals. There’s only one cinema in Malawi and, being based in Blantyre, it’s likely its patrons will be comprised of this small group. It makes me wonder if the new Robin Hood film will be a success here.

Yours,   
William Mitting

In which Will weighs up the fairly frightening risks of using the Malawian national airline.

Dear MT,

Air Malawi has announced it’s going to resume flights to Mzuzu. I can’t wait. At the moment, the only way to get from where I am in Mzuzu to Blantyre, the financial centre of Malawi – which is where I do all my business/interviews – is a gruelling 18-hour overnight bus ride, which manages, paradoxically enough, to hurtle down the road at a terrifying pace, but taking an inordinate amount of time to cover a relatively small distance. In hindsight, it was probably a bit of a mistake to decide to live 700km from where I work in one of the least developed countries in the world, where the roads are more pockmarked than a fast food worker’s forehead.

Obviously, the prospect of getting back to business is most welcome – but I’m not so sure how much I trust Air Malawi. Recently the UN announced it had banned its staff from using the air carrier, and locals say it’s too unreliable to be trusted. The government, on the other hand, is desperate to persuade people to use Air Malawi – not unlike BA, the state-owned carrier is facing a number of serious financial problems and desperately needs the cash.

The government might have its work cut out, though – an article in The Daily Times newspaper the other day had the headline: ‘Air Malawi cancels flight mid-air’. That’s going to put you off using the airline, isn’t it? Still, Air Malawi CEO Wisdom ‘Ratner’ Mchungula attempted to placate worried customers, saying: "It is true the flight which had over 90 passengers developed a technical fault which even if I explained it, you wouldn't understand. It's not a big deal. We know our passengers had their own destinations but when a flight is not safe to fly we cancel it. It happens all the time.” Somehow, that 18-hour bus ride suddenly doesn’t seem so long.

Yours,
William Mitting

Our man in Malawi insists donors shouldn't withdraw aid, despite the country's draconian attitude to gays.

The news that two men have received 14-year sentences for gross indecency and 'unnatural acts' following their public engagement in December last year is truly shocking to a Western mind, but not unsurprising giving the levels of deeply engrained homophobia in this country. When the two were found guilty, the judge said that '90% of the crowd would agree with the decision'. I am afraid to say that this is probably accurate.
 
Talking to Malawians about the issue, I found no-one who would say the ruling was wrong. Almost all justifications were rooted in the Bible and, in particular, the right wing interpretation that highlights God's apparent militant homophobia (interestingly no-one thought that you should be put to death for collecting sticks on a Sunday, despite that also being mentioned in the holy book).
 
The issue has been hotly debated in the press, which is - on the whole - against the rulings. Despite this, the more politically correct reader would no doubt have been offended by some of the headlines. 'The President speaks out on gayism', 'Ruling due on homos' and 'Gays remain silent' are just a few of those to have appeared in the last few months.
 
Donors, however, must be careful in their response - and be aware that threats to withdraw aid may perpetuate the issue. Ask people here about aid, and they'll tell you that they would rather go hungry than risk the wrath of God. Donors must appreciate this. One school teacher told me: 'We are used to being poor, we can go back to that; but we cannot turn our backs on God and our culture'. The root of Malawi's homophobia is poverty. Faith in God supersedes all in Malawi, and the illiterate form their beliefs based on the views of right wing pastors - pastors who exaggerate the opposition to homosexuality in the bible. (I've sat through a sermon from a pastor doing just this.)
 
If the donors truly want to promote gay rights in Malawi, they must continue to help educate the people. It is easy to see Malawi's homophobia as a top-down government issue, but in fact it is deeply ingrained in the psyche of many, for religious reasons that we in the West find difficult to appreciate. Only through access to education, the ability to interpret the bible individually and empowerment to form individual views will public opinion turn against such rulings. With the weight of public opinion believing that the ruling is God's will, no government can oppose it. No matter what its donors say.
 
I note that Madonna has also spoken out against the action. With all due respect for her singing, in such a deeply conservative country, the opinions on sexual ethics of someone who has spent the last 30 years dressed in hotpants dry-humping a television camera are unlikely to have too much influence in Malawi.