There is so much negligence among our public officers, to the point that people’s lives are at stake. Unfortunately, no one seems to care about the recklessness that is slowly becoming characteristic of what we are as a nation.
The supply of contaminated water to Area 18 residents in the capital city is a very good recent example of the lackadaisical approach with which duty bearers have opted to treat Malawians. In the first place, that unfortunate development would not have happened.
Public officers tasked with the supply of potable water to the residents knew decades ago that their pipes were dangerously laid below sewer. It would not require someone to sit in an engineering class to predict that any mishap would be a disaster.
Both Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) and the Malawi Housing Corporation would also have known that their asbestos pipes would, one day, give in to pressure applied by rapid construction in the city to warrant for PVC or stainless steel pipes. The Lilongwe City fathers were also supposed to be on top of the heap to whip these two service providers to be up to scratch on their services. But all that was taken for granted.
Needless to mention that the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development also slept on the wheel as it did not provide that oversight role on policy issues. Everyone just ran public affairs as usual business.
Even now that the issue has reached crisis point —where over 100 households have been affected, with people suffering from diarrhoea — there seems to be no solution in sight.
The LWB has admitted that there is a crisis. Unfortunately, they are so overwhelmed that the only way out for them is to cut off Area 18 from their system. Seeing that LWB is helpless, the suggestion seems to make sense. There is no point in applying trial and error tactics in solving a problem that directly affects lives of people.
It would be better to ensure that the residents are not exposed to hazardous water while all the holes are being plugged. At this point, no one can trust LWB with the task of fixing this problem. They have failed enough and they honestly admit the problem.
It is just surprising that the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development wants to cheat the residents that the water is potable. The ministry claims to have run tests to ensure quality of the water. But this is a ministry that has presided over the problem until it reached crisis levels. Its assessment cannot be trusted at this point.
The effluent is still there, with some of it flowing through the lawns of the residents. How dare the ministry say that the water is now safe although the spillage continues? In any case, LWB made similar pronouncements, recently, that the water was safe, only to realise that the situation was even worse. It does, therefore, make no sense for the ministry to take such a position.
But the incident, as well as the way it has been handled, is very strange, coming amid the ongoing public sector reforms programme that the country embarked on.
The reforms commission submitted its report, marking the end of its work some four months ago. But the reforms are ongoing. At the beginning of the reforms, chief executives and controlling officers in the public sector signed contracts to accept benchmarks of delivery. Chief executive officers then cascaded the commitment to their members of staff until every public servant embraced and internalised the spirit of the reforms.
And the essence of the reforms was unparalleled quality in service delivery by public bodies. Some public institutions even went on to sign service delivery charters and client charters. These charters were a kind of oath and commitment to serve the public better. They also raised legitimate expectations within members of the public that service delivery would improve.
Therefore, the Area 18 incident has frowned up on the reforms and is a slap in the face of the government. It has betrayed public trust and is a clear manifestation that duty bearers have abdicated from their roles.
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