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Malawi will never be one country to poke fun at our Zambian brothers, now netted in an energy crisis of sorts.
The Zambian brothers and sisters gave Malawi- their eastern neighbour- five million litres of fuel to help ease the fuel problems that were being experienced by Malawi.
Now, for some 13 days running, the Zambians seem to have run out of the liquid that moves the world. Not only the liquid, electricity production ( is it generation) seems to have dwindled in Africa's top copper miner. When such things happen, industries scale down on their activities, and this has an impact on daily production.
But, contrary to experts' fears that the crisis may proliferate and create a crisis of sorts, the Zambian government has the capacity to come over the situation and put the misfiring generators and broken interlink crude oil pipeline from Tanzania back on the breathing line.
Unlike Malawi, which is about to embark on oil exploration in Lake Malawi, Zambia has copper- which has sustained its economy for ages.
It is copper, and not the 15-day strategic reserves' fund which President Michael Sata scraped off month after getting into office, that will get things ticking again. Yes, it is true that the fund was aiding oil marketing firms to pile up reserves for days on end. But copper, along with the coming in of the contractor who will eventually sign up for the contract of supplying 1.4 million tonnes of oil after the expiry of a two-year supply contract with Glencore International plc, a Switzerland headquartered commodities' trading company, will bail our Zambian brothers out.
Of course, the other predictable thing about the Zambian situation is that Malawi's president, Joyce Banda, will not come to their rescue the way Sata did: Fuel shortages continue unabated in Malawi, with the situation becoming worse the past two weeks than ever (since Banda took over) before.
Southern Africa has two fuels'-starving neighbours!
The Zambian brothers and sisters gave Malawi- their eastern neighbour- five million litres of fuel to help ease the fuel problems that were being experienced by Malawi.
Now, for some 13 days running, the Zambians seem to have run out of the liquid that moves the world. Not only the liquid, electricity production ( is it generation) seems to have dwindled in Africa's top copper miner. When such things happen, industries scale down on their activities, and this has an impact on daily production.
But, contrary to experts' fears that the crisis may proliferate and create a crisis of sorts, the Zambian government has the capacity to come over the situation and put the misfiring generators and broken interlink crude oil pipeline from Tanzania back on the breathing line.
Unlike Malawi, which is about to embark on oil exploration in Lake Malawi, Zambia has copper- which has sustained its economy for ages.
It is copper, and not the 15-day strategic reserves' fund which President Michael Sata scraped off month after getting into office, that will get things ticking again. Yes, it is true that the fund was aiding oil marketing firms to pile up reserves for days on end. But copper, along with the coming in of the contractor who will eventually sign up for the contract of supplying 1.4 million tonnes of oil after the expiry of a two-year supply contract with Glencore International plc, a Switzerland headquartered commodities' trading company, will bail our Zambian brothers out.
Of course, the other predictable thing about the Zambian situation is that Malawi's president, Joyce Banda, will not come to their rescue the way Sata did: Fuel shortages continue unabated in Malawi, with the situation becoming worse the past two weeks than ever (since Banda took over) before.
Southern Africa has two fuels'-starving neighbours!
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