Opinion: Truck drivers are equals, treat them better

Malawi: The past two days have been enough evidence as to whether or not everyone, in their industry, is important.

Truck drivers who enable automobiles in the cities and towns to make mobility easier purposefully chose to prove their substance.

Out of reasonableness, they stack to their guns, demanding pay hike for them to do their work; not only happily, but satisfactorily at the same time.

They also asked government to reduce passport renewal fee so that their industrial life would be more worthwhile, failing which they really made it clear they would not go back to the road.

This was a necessary evil way of having their grievances attended to because barely three days after they stopped operating, the nation was halted to a standstill as there was literally no fuel to keep the transportation industry operational.

And surely, everything else was slowly but surely crumbling as business was no longer the usual.

It was very clear that government, through Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera), was simply being economical with the truth by telling the public that there was sufficient fuel in the reserves to save the country for at least a month.

As government was sitting somewhere playing hide and go seek games with the truck drivers' worries whilst enjoying authority, an innocent poor expectant woman at a health centre located somewhere in the middle of nowhere was at the verge of losing her life while willing to give birth to another life; surely because an ambulance at a district hospital thereto was unable to speed to the lower hospital to ferry and save the two lives as it had no kinetic energy in form of the essential liquid commodity. How unfortunate!

Evidently speaking, it is high time every industry was regarded and treated as an equal piece of the entire jigsaw puzzle; of which without it, the other pieces would not successfully connect to form one fully functional economy.

As a matter of fact, Malawi is a landlocked country without any minerals.

And for so many years, we have deliberately frustrated the Naccara Corridor project out of political pride; such that transportation of fuel into the country through trains would be the easiest way.

It is an open secret that fuel is the determining commodity of our economy.

When its price goes up, every other commodity's price follows suit.

That being the case, the transporters of the precious resource ought to be treated as importantly as medical doctors, lawyers, and largely the politicians seated in parliament.