In 2014, Owen Banda, 22, was eligible to vote in tripartite elections the country held but he did not. However, the outcome of the elections did not move him.
“Why should I vote?” Banda says. “Even if you ask those who voted in this area if there is anything to show from those they elected, you will find out there isn’t any.”
One could probably question Banda’s patriotism but an attentive ear to his tale, perhaps, will convince you to nod to his decision. Banda is among many a frustrated person with elected duty bearers who fail to deliver their campaign promises.
As elected duty bearers possess high-class vehicles and out-of-the-world mansions to show for the time they have been in the seat, Banda’s tale is about a ruined future, visible from a distance. He was reduced to a one-legged person following a crocodile attack on his left leg.
Banda, who comes from Kawerama Village in Traditional Authority Malengachanzi in Nkhotakota recalls one day in 2004 when a crocodile attacked him when he slipped while cross in gariver.
“I like football very much and on that day I was going to Kasamba to watch a local match when I slipped while crossing a river through of tree logs that were laid on the water.
“The next thing I realised was my leg in the jaws of a crocodile, ” he says.
He says friends he were with could not help in saving him but after a 15-minute battle with the dangerous animal, he survived by God’s grace but his left leg was gone.
“Doctors at Kamuzu Central Hospital, where I was rushed to, could not do anything to save the situation and I stayed in the hospital for about two years waiting for the wound to heal,” he says.
The attack led Banda to a path he never anticipated.
He is now into a life without one leg. The wound he had is now healed but not his heart. As a 12-year-old back in 2004, Banda was always dazzled by football skills of Brazilian Ronaldo and he wanted to become one but that ambition was shuttered though he is now a carpenter.
“It took me time to accept the fate but now life has to go on,” says Banda, now married and a father of one child.
“I never dreamt of becoming a carpenter but, nevertheless, I thank God for sparing my life and that through this business, I have managed to build a house and I am able to take care of my family,” he says.
Banda is just conspicuous evidence of how the absence of a bridge at Ling’ona River has negatively impacted on lives of people in villages around Group Village Head (GVH) Liwewe.
For almost 12 years now, people in the area have been longing for a bridge. During rainy season, the river is infested with crocodiles, thus making it a death trap to learners going to Kasamba Community Day Secondary School. Students have to abandon school in rainy season, thus affecting their studies.
Even people around the area cannot travel to the other side to buy food and other essentials as this is the only short route that connects them to Nkhotakota Boma and other places of importance.
GVH Liwewe says the elected leaders only come during campaign periods and vanish when ushered into positions and only to reappear wit h the same promi s e s when they need the voters.
“They only cheat us during campaign times with promises that they will construct the bridge at Ling’ona but what we have are only promises,” Liwewe says.
On the day of our visit, women with their children were busy washing clothes in the river as young children bathed and enjoyed themselves on the other side.
They seem basking in the glory of using free water but few months from now the joy will turn into sorrow as nobody would dare coming anywhere near the water. This is how life is to the people.
The country’s former vice-president Cassim Chilumpha who also served as the area’s parliamentarian for two terms managed to construct a concrete slab.
“For over 10 years, the bridge has been in this state. We have been alternatively using planks which we lay on top of the concrete slabs which we cross on but now the planks are no longer there since they got damaged and we don’t know what will happen when rains begin,” Liwewe says.
The sight of concrete slabs always gives them hope that one day the bridge would be finished but with perhaps no interest from the elected duty bearers to finish the construction works, the waiting continues. Even the area’s Village Development Committee (VDC) members have given up pushing for the finishing of the project. The coming in of councillors in 2014 revived the people’s hopes that they have somebody to fight for their battles. But the song is still the same. No change.
“We have taken the issue to our councillor who also attends full council meetings but there is no help,” says Ramadan Saidi, who is an adviser of Kawerama VDC. The area’s Councillor Tobias Banda seems helpless. He said he was aware of the problem but not in a position to provide solutions, allegedly alluding to a disconnect between him and the area’s Member of Parliament.
“I have tried to discuss the matter with the MP. But there is little I can do since I don’t handle CDF [Constituency Development Fund]?” the councillor says.
CDF, which was introduced in 2006 with an aim of responding to community development needs, has had its allocation rising almost yearly from K1 million to the current K18 million per constituency. On top of CDF, government brought in District Development Fund (DDF) in an effort to ensure that social services are taken to the common people.
But both funds seem not to make a difference to these people.
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