Our Senior News Analyst NTCHINDI MEKI reports how motorcycle riders police each other in Malawi’s colonial capital. Zomba.
Not log ago, kabaza riders were a nuisance on Zomba’s steep, winding roads as they weaved through traffic with reckless abandon.
They rode without crash helmets, carried none for passengers and ignored basic traffic regulations despite surging deaths and boiling public anger.
Luke Kazombe feels lucky. On September 17 2024, a car rammed into his kabaza and he hit the tarmac hard.
“If I wasn’t wearing a helmet, my head would have split open,” he laments. “I sustained wounds on my face that required stitching.”
His narrow escape highlights a broader transformation in Zomba’s motorcycle taxi operations.
The shifting attention towards road safety has less to do with police checkpoints than riders’ discipline from their ranks to customers’ destinations.
Three years ago, the city’s kabaza deluge was chaotic and deadly. Zomba Central Hospital was overwhelmed with casualties and local authorities struggled to find a solution.
Residents often retaliated by attacking errant riders and burning their motorcycles at accident scenes.
Realising that top-down enforcement was failing, Zomba City mayor Christopher Jana met the operators to discuss ways to make laws work.
“The mayor’s office works for the people and success must be collective,” he says. “When you have laws, you must sensitise the operators first and agree how best to make the law work.”
Jana convened meetings with kabaza operators to discuss the rising accident statistics.
The talks persuaded the riders to start regulating each other.
“We agreed with the motorcyclists’ committee to appoint enforcers who would work alongside city council staff,” the mayor states.
The council now collects enforcement fees through the committee while riders who violate traffic regulations pay fines via a bank account.
Part of the fines pays the peer enforcers’ salaries.
At Mpondabwino Rank near Chikanda Township, Davidson Msang’oma, 40, who has been riding since 2018, helps keep the peer-to-peer arrangement ticking.
“We all agreed on the rules,” he says. “If you operate without a helmet, we will fine you. It’s not the council imposing this on us; it’s us.”
Some riders try to renegotiate or resist the fines, but the enforcers remain strict that they confiscate non-compliant motorcycles to prevent a relapse into chaos.
Interestingly, riders now fear council enforcers more than the police who sometimes accept kickbacks and compromises.
Similar discipline is evident at the central hospital rank near Changalume T-junction where about 100 riders initiated their own safety measures four years ago, long before the council formalised the by-laws.
The regulations outlaw riding while intoxicated, carrying children who can easily fall off and overloading.
Penalties include immediate suspension for anyone smelling alcohol and a K50 000 fine for riding without a helmet or overloading.
“Accidents have drastically dropped,” says Chifuniro Henderson, 26, who has operated for five years.
Jabesi Willy, 25, says the council’s stewards allow reasonable exceptions, such as carrying a patient alongside a guardian, “only if both wear helmets”.
No one is above the shared road safety framework.
When some soldiers and a member of Parliament refused to comply, Jana escalated the matters to their supervisors and the parliamentarian paid a K100 000 fine.
However, some operators complain that peer enforcers sometimes ambush moving motorcycles near speed humps, risking the very accidents they are supposed to prevent.
Interestingly, public perception is shifting.
At Chipiku rank in the city centre, passengers now demand helmets before climbing. If a rider has none, a passenger waits for the next compliant motorbike operator.
Only one in five riders at Mpondabwino Rank own amotorcycle. The rest are casual workers, earning about K8 000 weekly.
None of the 20 riders interviewed holds a rider’s licence, a gap blamed on exorbitant fees.
Government subsidised the decried fees between March and June 2025, but only licensed about 12 000 of a targeted two million operators.
The fees have since bounced back to K200 000 from K56 000.
A 2023 study by the UK-funded Traction programme revealed that 70 percent of motorcycle taxis in Zomba, Blantyre, Mzuzu and Lilongwe were owned by working-class individuals, including police and military officers.
Worryingly, police cited motorcycle crashes for at least 980 deaths and 2 000 serious injuries recorded between 2022 and 2025.
At least 931 people died on the country’s roads last year, down from 958 in 2024.
Kabaza accidents have overwhelmed the country’s constrained healthcare system, forcing central hospitals in Lilongwe and Blantyre to set aside wards for casualties.
Lilongwe Institute of Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery treats over 2 000 motorcycle-accident patients annually.
Despite these dangers, an Institute of Public Opinion and Research survey shows that Malawians—about 97 percent—view kabaza as essential and 72 percent used the motorcycles in 2024.
This calls for inclusive regulation, not bans.
Zomba’s local approach could help reduce the lawlessness and road carnage nationwide.
“We intend to use these fines to sponsor riders for formal training with the Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services,” says Jana.
