Give us squash, Lilongwe Water Board
December 9 2021
Nature does not like a vacuum. Pachoka mnzako pali malo. Since Bon Kalindo, who is known in drama as Winiko, seems to be concentrating on organising demonstrations to put pressure on President Lazarus Chakwera’s government, it appears there are many who are willing to take up his place on the stage.
These past few days, we found a comedian too raw he spread laughing powder right in our face. Mind you, he made that naughty joke when everyone is saying the cost of living is getting way too high to get over.
The Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) chief executive officer Silli Mbewe gave us all the reason to laugh. Those at the second edition of ‘The Government Meets the Press’, the CEO and his team walked in with a two-litre squash bottle and a 200-litre drum.
To illustrate a point justifying that although the price of water rose by 53 percent recently, it still remains the cheapest commodity on the market, Mbewe said: “I deconstruct, that instead of buying a bottle of squash, you and me can drink water for a month.”
Now, it has been a while since many of us heard such bad jokes. How on earth can one compare water with orange squash?
It is insensitivity of the highest order to compare such a basic need as water to the luxurious squash. And coming at a time prices of goods are skyrocketing, this was a bad joke!
It is flawed thought to believe that the price of water should be higher because squash is cheap. We all know we don’t need squash to survive. I can bet my last tambala, there are some in the deep rural areas who can’t tell you the colour of Orange Squash.
While we agree operational costs are high, it makes little sense to compare the prices of two totally different products.
We started out that Kalindo seems to be riding smoothly with his demonstrations. Never mind, the trade unions are sleeping on the job as they are taking a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil and say-no-evil stance when the bigger chunk of their followers are feeling the pinch of the high cost of living.
The other day, Minister of Information Gospel Kazako believed Kalindo is just getting personal about all this. He reasoned that demonstrations cannot be the solution to the times we are living. He feels all this is slowing down development and that South Africa, Tanzania and all our neighbours are developing because there are no protests. What he forgot to remind us is that demonstrations were a regular feature prior to the court-sanctioned fresh presidential election.
Politicians are just meant to be forgiven since they forget so easily. They forget promises they make. They forget mistakes their predecessors made. Unfortunately, they also forget that the people they lord over don’t forget.
It is not surprising, then, that leaders of the former ruling Democratic Progressive Party Joseph Mwanamvekha, Dalitso Kabambe and Ben Phiri were arrested. If there was wrong-doing, the law will have to take its course. We have seen this script before. When Bakili Muluzi and the United Democratic Front got to power, Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda and his Malawi Congress Party henchmen knew how cold police floors are.
It will not come as a surprise if those committing massive corruption, fraud and mere thievery in the current regime will scarcely face prosecution until they are overthrown.
