Encounters with Likoma's Tired Cars

FACE OF NO STANDARDS: LIKOMA SECONDARY SCHOOL PICK-UP

To lovers of lurid stories, Likoma and Chizumulu are a gift that keeps giving. If around 11 000 lives were not under threat while Ilala was undergoing maintenance since June last year, it should have been a cliché to chronicle the importance of water transport to the islanders.

Perhaps, what readers do not know is how people travel once they step on the secluded fishing and tourism sites.

If your port of call is Chizumulu, you are bound to leave the island thinking that the residents were born to walk all days of their lives.

BECAUSE THERE'S NO CAR ON CHIZUMULU

There is no car on the isle with a population of 3 000.

But crossing over to the other side to which the district owes its name, one discovers the ageing motoring sphere of the district.

Nosy visitors only need to chance into a vehicle to start asking around how many there are.
 

There are 11 cars on the island. Only three of them are privately owned, locals say. The rest are owned by government departments, including the District Commissioner, Malawi Police Service (MPS), St Peters Hospital, Department of Water and Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom).

FOR ST PETER'S ANGLICAN

However, many are disfigured to the extent that visitors wonder what happened to the certificate of fitness (COF) as a prerequisite for motor vehicles on the roads of Malawi. Is Likoma’s fleet exempted from the Road Traffic Directorate’s standards?  What about the white-hat police officers who enforce traffic regulations and ensure road safety on tarmac upland?

“Here, there are no traffic police officers. The 19 general duties officers at the station can police the handful cars on the roads of Likoma,” said police officer in-charge Gray Chimphepo.

He stated that it does not need an entire traffic department to ensure road safety and weed unwanted vehicles—for you can spend a lifetime without witnessing an accident.

This would be almost true if road accidents were strictly about car clashes. In the absence of bumper-to-bumper collisions, confirmation that accidents can happen even on unpaved road with no traffic jams is conspicuous in the pitiful looks of a privately owned vehicle with the inscription ‘Talumbe’.

FOR PUBLIC HEALTH'S SAKE

Probably the busiest truck on the spot, it has been operating without windscreens, headlamps and indicators since it overturned on the island’s longest highway—a gravel affair between Nkhwazi and Makulichi—in 2011, locals say.

Traditional Authority Nkumpha wants the feeder  road to become the first tarmac on the isles because it is crucial not only when it comes to transportation of vital supplies and information by government officials, but the operations of private vehicles that carry tourists from Ilala’s harbour and Likoma Airport as well as goods  to various destinations.

In terms of emergency cases, especially when St Peters’ two ambulances are busy or faulty, they carry patients, pregnant women and the dead.

UNPAVED MAKULAWE-NKWAZI ROAD

 As the wait for the tarmac continues, motorists say there is no reason to worry about COF since accidents rarely happen and carrying the vehicles to the mainland for road tests would be more costly than they coughed to ship them to Likoma by Ilala’s bulge.

Among the unfit vehicles, a 4x4 Toyota Hilux government bought for Likoma Secondary School during former president Bakili Muluzi’s reign (1994-2004).

Its lights are broken, brakes suspect and the body rusty. Efforts to ascertain its year of make hit a snag because COF and insurance discs were nowhere on the windscreen.

Even deputy head teacher Duncan Msowoya does not remember when they got it.
He quipped: “You may think it’s a non-runner, but it isn’t. This scrap is usually off-road due to breakdowns, but it helps us a lot when ferrying maize to the grinding mill and students to the hospital. The real problems come at night because it has no lights.”

DISTRICT COUNCIL WAITING FOR TWO CARS FROM THE MAINLAND

 The major heartbreak with vehicles such as the State-owned pick-up is not that they cannot be shipped to Nkhata Bay and beyond for repairs due to lack of a jetty at Likoma Port.

Two cars belonging to the District Council are trapped on the mainland due to lack of a jetty at Likoma Port.

The misfortune is that when left unattended to for far too long, the vehicle’s ruinous impact comes when diviners least expect it.

Just last year, a pedestrian was hit by a vehicle, leaving the victim struggling to claim compensation and the proprietor with no insurance for maintenance of his prized asset.

This too presents a new reason for government agencies, including the Road Traffic Directorate, to treat Likoma as truly part of Malawi.