Ndirande political auction gone awry

From the moment I heard Ndirande Market in Blantyre was up in smoke, I had a hunch there was something terribly wrong about it. And I didn’t have that long to wait to confirm my worst fears.

Days after the fire had consumed the market, “people of goodwill” started to pour in with their condolences and pledges of assistance.

Mark Katsonga Phiri is the vice president of the People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) but he has lofty ambitions of the presidency and courting Ndirande would go a long way in his aspirations. He was the first high profile figure to visit Ndirande in the aftermath of the so-called ‘national tragedy’ but when he ‘condoled’ the affected vendors with K2million, he never alluded to his political ambitions.

Instead, he opted to hide in the fact that he has some association with the township having lived there at some point in his life. Fair reason, indeed!

Bakili Muluzi, president of the United Democratic Front (UDF), was not one to see a political opportunity pass by, so off he was to Ndirande and he went one better: he beat Katsonga by a million but to date, I can’t recall the reasons he had for his ‘donation’.

Then came President Bingu wa Mutharika, who was too busy with matters of the state to visit Ndirande and so he delegated two cabinet ministers who pledged K4 million on his behalf, conveniently outbidding Muluzi by a million.

Sadly, the president preyed on the vendors’ patience and consequently lost the plot when the vendors vented their anger on an innocent-looking Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) office in Ndirande after the K4million was not forthcoming weeks after the pledge.

It reminds me of the UDF office that was also a victim of the people’s running emotions in 2004 in the aftermath of the elections which elected you-know-who.

The whole matter begs the question: What was at play here when Katsonga, Muluzi and Mutharika made their pledges? Was it charity or an auction for votes?

The highest bidder, unfortunately, lost.

All is not lost, however, as they are some market-fire victims in Chikwawa after fire gutted Dyeratu Market. But I guess there won’t be any political bidding there on the scale we saw in Ndirande. Perhaps that’s the terrain Amunandife Nkumba and Kamlepo Kalua can have luck with. We start at K1million, No?