Jacqueline Msiska Bokosi: running Chisurija transport services 

The zeal to keep her late husband’s dream alive has seen 36-year-old Jacqueline Msiska Bokosi growing the newly established CTS Courier Company in a record six months.

Her husband, Richard Bokosi’s sudden demise in December 2020 landed her into becoming the sole captain of the business that the two of them started together a few years ago.

The duo’s business, registered as Chisurija Transport Services to provide passenger services, birthed the courier company that is now on the lips of many—CTS Courier— taking the C from Chisurija, T from Transport and S for Services from the original business.

The courier business idea came in 2019 after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, as people were afraid to travel. Sending parcels by courier became the most ideal way.

It was also birthed with the aim of filling the gap for affordable courier services, as many people were not satisfied with the services on the market.

“My husband came up with the idea of starting a courier company to bridge the gap that was there as people were complaining of missing parcels or parcels taking longer to be delivered as well as customer service,” she explains

The new idea was also fitting because they had already built experience in transportation.

And so, by October 1 2020, CTS Courier started operations in the three cities of Mzuzu, Blantyre and Lilongwe, with the hardest task of penetrating the market ahead of them.

But this did not stop the couple from moving forward and following their dream.

“We kept on pressing. The business started picking up in the month of December, we were all happy that customers were now coming to us and then the unexpected happened. I lost the love of my life suddenly. He fell ill and died the same day. It was such a huge blow,” says the third born of seven children in her family.

This not only affected her personally as she went into depression, but the business as well and people speculated they were going to close.

“I was scared, but I thank God for my sister who encouraged me to be strong. So, I remembered the vision we had; where we were coming from and I could not give up just like that because life decided to throw some lemons my way. I looked at my children and then I got the motivation to go back into the office and work to make my late husband’s dream come true,” she says.

Soon she went into intensive marketing, handing out flyers to customers in shops, hotels, offices and on the streets.

Every day when she woke up, she remembered her husband’s vision, determined to make his dream come true and make his spirit happy.

By the grace of God, customers started flocking back to CTS Courier, to the extent that now she has opened more shops at Kameza, Kudya and Limbe in Blantyre and in Zomba; with plans of opening another branch at Kanengo in Lilongwe.

“We are taking the service closer to people, considering that transport fares have gone up and it is expensive for customers to pay K2 000 on transportation only to collect a parcel at K700,” the mother of three says.

Looking to the future, she sees CTS Courier going into the districts and being the best courier service among the rest in the country.

She also envisions it becoming the first local courier company that goes international in the next four years by the help of God and customers’ support.

Nonetheless, acknowledging that challenges are always part of life, she shares that the business has had a fair share of them.

Firstly, her husband’s demise barely two months after establishing the new company was a challenge in itself.

Added to that was the rising fuel prices.

“It was not easy as our prices are already low, because we charge K700 for all parcels which weigh less than one kilogramme. So with the rise in fuel prices, we were hit hard, but we could not raise our prices as we are new on the market,” she says.

Apart from that, Msiska Bokosi cites that as the fuel prices led to an increase in commodity prices, the costs of spares parts have also risen, equally impacting on their operations.

However, she was quick to mention that they came up with strategic solutions that have so far been helpful to keep the business afloat.

Advising her younger self, she says: “life is not always straight forward, sometimes there will be obstacles, but this should not stop you from following your dreams. Never give up. Keep moving forward, and work hard towards your dream. Only the sky is the limit.”

Born on March 3 1986, the youthful businesswoman was born under a tree in Rumphi as her mother could not go to the hospital as things were back then in the era of the founding President Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, that no one was allowed to move about on March 3.

She lost both her parents and since her mother was the first to depart, their father took on the responsibility of raising the seven of them and never remarried until his death in 2011.

She got married in 2009 to the late Richard Bokosi and now answers to the call of mother for her three boys—Chisomo, Sungani and Alexander.

She went to Limbe Primary School, from where she was selected to Blantyre Secondary school, and later joined the Polytechnic’s Continuing Education Centre where she pursued her Diploma in Business Administration.

She then landed her first job in 2006 at Finca Malawi where she worked as regional administrator.

After working for a while, she enrolled at Exploits University where she attained her degree in business administration and worked with Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Corporation (MUSCCO) as administrative assistant.  n