No! No! No! The pain is becoming unbearable.
I mean the pain of queuing for fuel for days on end, only for the petrol or diesel to run out when it is your turn to refuel.
The pain is getting worse. I mean the pain of waiting for 2024- 25 Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) items.
Yes, the pain has become unbearable. It is unbearable because it is preventable. I mean, some four or five months ago, government officials were all over the place, lauding their levels of preparedness for AIP.
In their zeal, they even told us that the country was expecting 104,000 metric tonnes (mt) of fertiliser. The quantity, they claimed, would be enough for AIP beneficiaries.
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Come today, we are learning that only 16,261mt are in beneficiaries’ hands. Yes, out of 104,000mt, less than 16,300mt have landed in the right hands.
If the government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, meant to joke with us, then it has made a very bad joke. You do not joke on food issues.
No! No! No! The pain is becoming unbearable.
I mean the pain of waiting for a day when the government will stop spending money on important issues, yes, but at the wrong time. I mean, as people are surviving on buffalo beans and mangoes in some parts of the country, the government is serious about plans to construct a mausoleum, valued at K2 billion-plus, for a political figure from the Shire Valley.
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Yesterday, I listened to ‘Times Talk’ programme on Times Radio. Coincidentally, the topic of discussion pertained to the mausoleum. One of the callers, who claimed to be from the Shire Valley, lamented that they were surviving on wild tubers.
The caller, male, went on to say they, therefore, did not see the need for the government to prioritise a mausoleum at this point in time. He said people needed food more than mausoleums.
That is it. A caller from what used to be the politician’s stronghold raising a finger against the idea to embark on the mausoleum project now. The issue, apparently, is the timing. People are facing hunger in this country.
Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation Executive Director Michael Kaiyatsa added his voice to the issue in the same programme. He said he was not against the idea of honouring the politician in question at all; it was about timing.
He referred to the issue of hunger, economic meltdown, forex shortage and other issues. He felt that these deserved the government’s attention more than anything else.
But, then, who can listen to him? Not the powers-that-be.
The pain is, truly, getting unbearable. I mean, the pain of waiting for the powers-that-be’s action on the issue. Not just on this issue but the issue of forex shortage, too.
As at now, the pain is becoming unbearable because the Central Medical Stores Trust is failing to supply medical drugs to some public hospitals across the country because its vehicles are grounded; there is no diesel in the land and, when the diesel is available, the trust’s vehicles are not prioritised.
Someone do something please; the pain is becoming unbearable.
As at now, people of Likoma and Chizumulu Islands are being subjected to prolonged blackouts because Electricity Generation Company (of Malawi) generators stationed there do not have enough fuel. I mean, diesel. It all boils down to the fuel supply crisis.
The pain is becoming unbearable. All over the place, people—I mean, ordinary people—are waiting for answers from those who rule on trust.
The answers are long coming, making the pain even more unbearable.
Oh, the pain has become unbearable— no one knows till when.
