One would hope that with General Elections closing in fast, President Lazarus Chakwera’s administration would be working round the clock to avoid obvious miskicks and misses that would disenchant the electorates. For example, i f government cannot bust corruption, at least it should steer clear of gaffes that now and then plunge our beautiful nation into fuel crises like the current one.
Now, for millions of Malawians fuel shortages, more than power outages, are like making them to carry a tonne of bricks on their heads. For them fuel is everything. It is their lifeline. For millions of Malawians fuel is what puts food on the table. Government should therefore not play with fuel.It should always ensure there is enough forex for fuel
Think of that kabaza operator in your area. He has a family to feed. Utility bills to pay. Rent. Fees. Ever yone in his family looks up to him for all their needs. If a child is sick, he has to buy drugs from the medicine store or pharmacy because the nearest health centre or hospital does not have any.
Let’s focus on the kabaza operator more closely. His day starts at 5am when he makes a bee-line for the road to pick that early riser from point A to B. His day ends at 7pm. Every day is working day. On a normal day, he grosses K30 000 or more. And with that amount he can boldly walk home with a jumbo stuffed with matemba or bonya, a ‘walkman’ (flour) for the day’s evening meal; a packet of sugar, salt, cassava o sweet potatoes, for breakfast for the following day, and some charcoal or firewood.
From that same K30 000 he must also refill his motorcycle. At least with five litres of petrol as starter pack for the following day, which is K12 650. But on a bad day, he makes less than K30 000. So he has to buy less of most of the above mentioned items.
But imagine what life is like for this person when there is no petrol. He still has to leave home at 5am or earlier to look for petrol. He camps at a filling station where he joins hundreds others in an identical situation. His hope is that the tanker is on the way. What time it will come he has no idea. But he has no choice but to wait there because his tank is empty. He waits for four hours. No fuel. Six, 10 hours! The tanker arrives at 5pm. But he is not very close to the pump. So he has to either patiently wait on the snaking queue of kabazas, and risk going home empty-handed because there are multiple queues running parallel to the one he is on. Or forcibly get to the pump because there is a high probability the precious fluid may run out before he gets there, so he just has to squeeze through the crowd angering many in the process. Since there are hundreds other kabaza operators like him doing exactly what he is doing, there is chaos at the filling stations.
But since he has done no business that day, he goes home with nothing. No usipa, no ‘walkman’, no sweet potatoes or cassava. The wife can understand why. There was no petrol. But not their three-year old son.
This man is writhing with pain. Angry. And there are millions in his situation. Those are votes.
The following day, he will not spend another whole day at the filling station. By all means he must put food on the table so he buys the overpriced petrol on the black market. Of course, he trebles the transport charge.
Now this is the person the ruling party administration must charm to vote for it in next year’s election. How easy will that be? If this continues, the opposition has the easiest of jobs to do in the next 10.5 months’ of electioneering. The problem is that they too don’t seem to know how to capita l i s e on MCP’s administration’s shortfalls.
