20 Tambala

KM#29 spans a period when Malawi was navigating the difficult transition from single-party rule — Hastings Banda's 30-year grip ended with the 1994 multiparty elections — into a fragile democratic era marked by IMF structural adjustment pressures and chronic kwacha devaluation. Nickel clad steel replaced earlier alloys across much of the coinage during this period largely as a cost-control measure, the Reserve Bank having little room to absorb rising metal costs against a depreciating currency.