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Pres Bingu wa Mutharika, whose cash-strapped government is grappling with a crippling fuel shortage, has hit back at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), saying the Fund advised Capital Hill that all foreign exchange receipts from tobacco sales - some $400 million annually – shouldn’t be controlled by the central bank but be sold through commercial banks.

Speaking in Chichewa on state radio and television, Mutharika, whose handling of the fuel crisis and the economy as a whole has attracted criticism from many quarters, said: “Forex is no longer in the commercial banks. It’s with people who run hardware shops.