Poor business, high fuel uptake ground Chilembwe

Malawi Shipping Company (MSC) has been forced to berth its state-of-the-art passenger ship MV Chilembwe due to, among other reasons, poor business and high consumption of fuel, Weekend Nation can reveal.

According to Lameck Mponda, one of the senior officers at the Monkey Bay Shipyard, MV Chilembwe last set sail three months ago but the business environment has been unfavourable, hence the decision by MSC to use only MV Ilala.

MSC is a subsidiary of multinational engineering firm, Mota-Engil Group.

According to Mponda, the $8.5 million (K3.6 billion) Chilembwe consumes about 10 000 litres per 300 miles (483 kilometres); the Ilala, on the other hand, uses only 5 000 litres for a similar distance.

“The MV Chilembwe does not make business sense because we use a lot of fuel when operating it compared to Ilala. The other problem we are facing is that there are some unseaworthy boats plying on the lake which charge less than us, making passengers flock to them. These boats are risky because they don’t have enough safety gadgets needed to save lives of passengers in terms of accidents,” Mponda said.

According to our information, passengers pay K3 500 for a seat in the economy class on the Ilala from Nkhata Bay to Likoma while the boats charge K2 500.

In an interview, Minister of Transport and Public Works Francis Kasaila conceded that some boats are not seaworthy and put the lives of passengers at risk.

“We know some people are using unseaworthy boats and at the same time exceed capacity. When these operators were issued with licences, they were given capacity limitations but sometimes they flout these procedures. Once we purchase a monitoring speed boat soon, we hope to end this problem once and for all,” said Kasaila.

He said most of the boats have no lights, no life jackets or life rafts and carry double as much as the recommended capacity

“Most of the boats that overload pick up passengers at undesignated areas along the lake but once they are caught, they are fined. I would like to request people not to put their lives at risk because they want to save K500,” said Kasaila.

On the challenges faced by MotaEngil to operate the ship on Lake Malawi, Kasaila said despite the company being a private entity, government will help resolve the problems it is facing.

Speaking to journalists a couple of months ago when MV Chilembwe was being assembled, former MSC general manager Carlos Mendes said MV Chilembwe was purchased to complement MV Ilala.

“The new vessel is modern and with a speed twice that of Ilala. It has a speed of up to 20 knots (approx. 37km per hour). It is built to modern high standards in that it is designed to be stable and can sail comfortably even in troubled waters. It has an efficient layout which is coupled with an excellent performance,” Mendes had said.

MV Chilembwe can carry 120 passengers with a capacity of 20 tonnes of cargo and has a lifespan of more than 100 years.

In 2010, government granted MSC a 35-year shipping services concession in order to attract more investment into the sector.

The new vessel is one of the key requirements of the concession agreement. MSC will also build a five-star hotel which will have an international golf course to prop up tourism.