Malawians in rural areas have expressed concern over the high price of prevention materials such as tapped buckets and face masks, saying traders have taken advantage of the pandemic.
In random interviews, the villagers said some traders have taken advantage of this period of Coronavirus to increase prices of buckets, masks and other materials used for Covid-19 prevention.
“Traders are hiking prices of items related to the prevention of Coronavirus. And moreover, each and every day, prices are changing,” said Magie Waliko.
She further said that in the past, they used to buy a pail with a tap at K1800 but now it has risen to K3800 which a lot of people in the villages cannot afford to pay at once.
“Someone from the village cannot afford paying K3800 just to buy a bucket as you know we rely on working for someone and sometimes doing small scale business,” she said.
On his part, Vasele Jolamu from Thyolo asked the government to consider on their lives and help people from the village with protective materials in helping to curb the spread of the disease.
“Government needs to start taking our lives seriously. They can donate to us protective materials like masks and hand sanitizer among other so that we should be free from the pandemic as we cannot afford to buy such items on our own,” he said.
One of the grave diggers from Jiya village in Balaka also expressed concern saying they are afraid with the coming of Coronavirus pandemic since they use a single tablet of soap after their work which puts their lives in danger.
“This is surely putting our lives in danger, how can we survive this pandemic especially us the village settlers,” he said.
Village head Chikalipa in Balaka said government and other stakeholders should ensure that vendors are not taking advantage of the pandemic to hike prices.
She said: “Raising prices for commodities which are in high demand in times of pandemics is witchcraft.
Malawi has recorded 37 coronavirus cases with 23 of them in Lilongwe and 9 in Blantyre.
