Any wonder that fuel tankers are leaking out millions of litres?

Dear Judge Mbadwa,

My Lord, I think I will not be in contempt of court if I start by bragging that my being skeptical of the diesel generator deal as a panacea to our electricity woes was not wide of the mark after all.

And when you hear that 3.8 million litres of fuel worth K1.9 billion meant to run the generators evaporated in thin air just like that, you realise that this is another clandestine money-minting enterprise for few privileged individuals.

Look, when I refused to be intoxicated with excitement over the commissioning of the diesel generators, with its sham promise of adding 55 megawatts to the national grid, I was labelled unpatriotic, especially from the blue-half of the political spectrum.

Now, who is being unpatriotic here?

The people who are stealing the taxpayers’ money by initiating the disappearance acts of tankers carrying million of litres or Nyasas who can no longer stomach the nauseating  thievery that characterise the conduct of people we entrusted to run our affairs?

Now that the fuel guzzlers are scarcely humming as it has become  clear that this was just a ploy for some enthusiastic anointed thieves to reap where they did not sow, where are those who waxed lyrical about this arrangement?

I hereby submit once again that Mapuya and his colleagues at Electricity Corporation of Nyasaland (Escon) sold us a dummy on the gensets and the purported rationale behind increasing tariffs, and they know it.

The silent gensets at Chichiri and elsewhere mockingly look at as us as some tombstones, laughing at all who praised their installation as the short-term solution to the electricity generation crisis. What short-term solution?

So, with this inefficiency, why should consumers be forced to pay through the nose the high electricity tariffs when the financial buckets at Escon are deliberately being leaked?

My Lord, I will remind you again how the whole energy regulatory authority went into overdrive, justifying the tariff increase on the basis of the gensets and now that this project has failed when are we being compensated?

My Lord, the whole genset arrangement was from the onset bizarre for a country that claims to be progressive and whose leadership likes to parade itself as the best there is.

By this letter, therefore, My Lord I want to ask your court’s indulgence in ensuring that we, citizens, are refunded what has been stolen from us taxpayers.

I don’t want to listen to claims that few misguided guards, drivers and junior clerks connived in evaporating 50 tankers of fuel.

If it were so, then we would safely conclude that Escon as an institution is a mere village arrangement where everybody does what they want.

My Lord, if people cannot live by their promises then they don’t deserve our sympathy and it is on this basis that I call for the dissolution of the boards of the power utility company and that of the energy regulating authority.

My Lord, unless the real oxidising agents responsible for the evaporation of millions of litres of diesel are caught, I will not buy the crap we have been so far sold.

Regards,

Nzika yeniyeni