My Thought

What will jolt us into action?

We have a crisis. We have an energy crisis that has paralysed our already weakling economy which is on life support machine.

Spending days in darkness have made me weary and angry that I sometimes wish I had the powers to single-handedly change things—but I know this is next to impossible.

But, sometimes when I go outside my house, I see people going about their usual routines unmoved and unbothered.  It is as if there isn’t any crisis at all.  Many of them have come to accept this crisis, which is reason enough for any sensible head of State to resign, as a normal.

Is it death of a loved one that is due to power cuts while on a hospital operating table that will jolt us into action? Or is it loss of a job because the company you are working for can no longer sustain running on a genset hence, forced to downsize staff and production?

When calls for a peaceful march are made, Malawians have been known to chicken out and hide in their homes than to come out and express their dissatisfaction in situations such as this. Government, Escom and Egenco are taking Malawians for fools. Their perennial lie of water levels no longer holds as God has been quite good to us—it has been raining in most parts of the country.

But, the way I look at it, the ball is in our court as citizens to wake up from our slumber and demand that whoever is responsible for providing us with uninterrupted electricity do their job. They may be sleeping on the job and it’s our collective responsibility to wake them up in case they have forgotten why they hold those positions.

We were promised that come December 2017, this problem will be over, but it hasn’t come to pass.

It is high time that as citizens you stop complaining on social media and think that’s it. Remember these people owe you an explanation as to why there is this crisis. Government, Escom and Egenco owe Malawians an explanation to this energy crisis which has paralysed businesses and people’s livelihood.

It is quite unfortunate that the leadership of this country seems unperturbed by what is happening. It doesn’t see this as a crisis that needs urgent and special attention.  One would think that by now heads must have rolled at Escom, Egenco and in government because they have failed to solve the problem.

But, this leadership knows that Malawians are very passive, they won’t demand anything from them. They can scream their voices horse, but the leadership will not act because they know, we as citizens are docile and can’t do anything about it. In fact, when we complain on social media it ends there.

Sellina Kainja

Online Editor | Social Media Expert | Earth Journalism Network Fellow | Media Trainer | Columnist

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