Act on roadside markets

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a friend who was planning to visit Malawi and travel across the country.

While discussing his itinerary, I advised him to set aside four to five hours for travel between Lilongwe and Blantyre.

He was surprised that a 311-kilometre journey would take that long. According to him, a travel advisory had indicated that the trip could take less time.

I did not wish to lecture him on numerous factors that slow vehicles travelling on the risky roads of Malawi.

However, I advised him that he would have to repeatedly slow down when passing marketplaces on the stretch.

At the mention of roadside markets, he snapped: “What are markets doing on the roads?”

The country’s  traffic laws require motorists to speed no more than 50km per hour when passing trading centres such as Kampepuza where a truckkilled scores of people in 2020.

So, the visitor’s surprise evoked the frustration faced by travellers on the stretch, who require an hour to travel between Lunzu and Blantyre central business district via populous townships of Mbayani and Chirimba. Lilongwe bound travellers from Blantyre face a similar slowdown when passing Six Miles, Kaphiri, Area 35 and Biwi.

His surprise left me with more questions than answers.

Why do we still have markets operating ‘on’ the roads almost 60 years after independence?

How many accidents do we have to witness at Kampepuza, Tsangano, Lizulu, Wakawaka and similar places to implement lasting solutions?

Is anybody tallying the economic implications of the time lost on the roads with these unnecessary hindrances?

The agony of motorists in the country does not end after passing busy marketplaces.

When one tries to make up for the time lost, police with speed traps will be waiting to fine the driver for speeding.

And the men and women in khaki uniforms literally ‘trap’ motorists as they will hide behind anything to fine offenders, not to caution them to travel safely.

Strictly speaking, all these factors slow progress to achieve pursuit for Vision 2063, the long-term national vision that articulates our  aspiration to become a middle-income economy with ‘regulated and controlled infrastructure development planning’ by the centenary of Malawi’s independence. 

Urgent action must be taken now.  The race for 2063 is a race against time.

If you ask me, the buck stops at the doorsteps of four ministries.

Here is why.

The ill positioned market infrastructure falls under the Ministry of Local Government while the economic activities that happen too close to the roads are the domain of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Likewise, the roads on the receiving end of the headache caused by the busy markets constitute the business of the Ministry of Transport and Public Works.

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs fund and promote best practices that must propel the beloved nation to become “an inclusively wealthy and self-reliant nation” with regulated and controlled infrastructure by 2063.

That said, lack of action to curtail worsening problems caused by rising economic activity in undesignated places, especially on the roads, is contempt of our collective desire for a better nation.

Time has come for the four ministries to start treating this development issue with the urgency that it deserves. The quartet and other stakeholders should start undoing these bottlenecks as the country races to the future we want.

Time is essential.

Christopher McDougall says:  “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle -when the sun comes up, you’d better be running”.