Divisions surface among Nsanje vendors over govt’s failure to make progress on proposed K236mil market project
Divisions have emerged among vendors in Nsanje with one faction strongly faulting their colleagues for government’s failure to make progress on proposed K236 Million Nsanje market project which was supposed to start on 15 July 2016.
One of the vendors in the market, Dafutala Biton, told Malawi News Agency (Mana) that some members of the market committee especially those that have shops allegedly demanded too much from government in compensation thus derailing the project.
“The demands on compensation are too much. This is our development and we need to support it. Let’s try to make development a success in the district,” said Biton.
The Market Committee Secretary, Henry Chipojola, said they had written the council requesting it to remove 28 ghost shops that appeared on the list of property that will require compensation.
“It is not that we are demanding too much from government but we want the process to be as transparent as possible,” said Chipojola.
Nsanje District Commissioner Gift Rapozo acknowledged the issue in an interview with Mana saying his office is working on the issue with the committee.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Mulhabase Mughogho has been mum as to whether government would bow down to the vendors’ demands.
Mughogho however accused the vendors of resisting development.
Government unveiled plans to construct a bus depot and a modern market at Nsanje district headquarter over five years ago but progress stalled a year ago due to disagreement on compensation.
How can there be ghost shops when a simple physical count of the shops will give an answer to the question. This shows that there is most likely collusion between the assessors and some of the vendors to inflate the figures so that, they can pocket the difference. Corruption is all over in Malawi and has derailed a lot of development projects. We don’t love our country to see it develop. Rather, people would steal money for personal gain and not putting county first.