Following a directive by President Peter Mutharika through his state of national address on coronavirus pandemic, the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) has revised downwards prices for fuel effective April 4.

On Saturday, Mutharika announced a number of measures to be implemented that include directing MERA to reduce fuel prices in order to address the high costs of transport which passengers have been experiencing.

MERA’s Consumer Affairs and Public Relations manager, Fitina Khonje, said petrol is now selling at K780. 60 per liter down from K930. 00 representing a 16.3 percent reduction, diesel is at K765. 60 per liter from K887. 00 representing 13. 75 percent while paraffin is now at K625. 00 per liter from K693. 00 representing a 9.71 percent reduction.

Khonje said: “There was an instruction from the president that MERA must reduce the price of fuel so we took up the task because it’s our responsibility and at the same time before coming up with these prices, MERA had to examine some factors on the ground.”

She said some of the factors include the global market price of the fuel, transport costs and the country’s currency exchange rate against United States dollar.

According to MERA, petrol, diesel and paraffin have qualified for the price adjustments in accordance with the Automatic Pricing Mechanism (APM) since their landed costs were beyond the 5 percent trigger limit.

Recently, public transport operators increased fares after the government imposed passenger number restrictions to help preventing the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

Malawi has so far registered four cases of COVID-19, three were recorded in Lilongwe while one in Blantyre.