As the dust settles and construction gears roar back to life, the resumption of the Balaka inner road project on Friday re-kindled a beacon of hope for the residents. Yet, amidst the revived activity, a lingering concern casts a shadow over the labourers on site—the uncertainty of their wages.
The labourers revealed to Malawi24 on Friday morning, before the resumption of work, claiming that although they have accepted to go back to work, they smell a sense of “exploitation” from their bosses because they owe them huge sums of arrears in unpaid wages—spanning from 2023.
They say: “The contractor owes us our money totalling around K25 million, which has been accumulating from last year. Our efforts to press them to give us our wages have proved futile on several attempts.
“Currently, though we have been told to go back to work, we have only bowed down to the order out of desperation because, we know that even if we quit the job, we have no immediate alternative of piece works.”
The labourers lament that they currently cannot afford to settle bills for necessities such as food, housing, and other life essentials.
“Life is really difficult because right now, our tenants have evicted us from their houses due to our failure to honour rental agreements, and every time we ask for our payment, we are told that the government is not paying them.”
The “desperate” labourers have since demanded their bosses to expedite the payment process or else face unspecified action.
The project, which has taken almost two years now, is a joint venture of local companies—Katakwe Civil Engineering, Mungo Civil Engineering and Mchinji Boys Construction.
We tried to engage the contractor for their side of the story, but our efforts did not materialize as we went to press on Saturday morning.
However, Roads Authority Chief Executive Officer, engineer Ammiel Champiti recently told Malawi24 in an email response that since the inception of the project about two years ago, K388 million out of the total project sum of K766.5 million has been disbursed to the contractor.
According to the RA boss, the Contractor delayed beating the project deadline, which was initially projected for June 2023, among other things, due to the realignment of the local currency to foreign currencies, which resulted in the sharp rise of construction materials.
Some residents we talked to say the delay in completion of the project has affected them in several ways, and they say they feel more worried, especially with the rainy season, which is imminent, arguing mobility on the road is severely affected as the drainage system is compromised.
