By Apengie Apengire
A week has passed since Minister of Energy and Mining, Hon. Dr. Jean Mathanga, stood before cameras and promised a nation on its knees that relief was coming. “143 fuel trucks were already in transit as of Wednesday,” she said last Friday. “An additional 110 trucks loaded with fuel are ready for dispatch.” That is 243 tankers.
By her own arithmetic, this fleet was supposed to flood the country and end the humiliation of dry pumps.
Today, the question ringing from Chitipa to Nsanje is simple: Where are they?
The serpentine queues that once choked our cities have not disappeared because fuel has returned.
They have vanished because filling stations have surrendered. Empty forecourts, locked pumps, and “No Fuel” signs are now the monuments to a promise broken. Motorists sleep in their cars for nothing.
Minibus operators park their hopes. Businesses bleed. Yet from Capital Hill, there is only a deafening silence.
Dr. Mathanga must not take Malawians for granted. Leadership is not a press conference. It is delivery. To announce 243 tankers with such precision, only for the country to see zero impact a week later, is not a miscalculation.
It is deception. When a minister feeds the public numbers that do not translate into fuel at the pump, that is cheating. When she repeats assurances while hospitals ration ambulances and farmers watch produce rot, that is lying.
The minister’s attempt to blame “aging infrastructure” and “global supply chains” insults the intelligence of citizens who have heard the same script for years.
We were told the Open Tender System would cure the vulnerabilities of Government-to-Government deals. We were told diversification would guarantee supply.
If that is true, why are we still dry? If 243 tankers were truly “in transit” and “ready for dispatch,” which border post swallowed them? Which depot is hiding them? Malawians deserve names, dates, and tracking sheets, not vague adjectives.
This is not just about fuel. It is about trust. It is about a government that seems comfortable making promises it cannot keep.
The same ministry that tells us blackouts will ease “in the long term” cannot even account for tankers it said were already on the road “in the short term.” How then do we believe any plan for hydropower rehabilitation, or new generation projects, when the basic task of getting diesel to Blantyre fails?
Dr. Shadric Namalomba asks citizens to “avoid panic buying.” But panic is the child of lies. When officials say fuel is coming and it does not, people hoard.
When ministers speak and pumps stay dry, trust evaporates faster than petrol. You cannot lecture the public on calm while feeding them fiction.
The Democratic Progressive Party rode to power on promises of efficiency and delivery. Today, under its watch, the energy sector is a case study in failure.
If a minister cannot tell the difference between “in transit” and “invisible,” she has no business managing a strategic ministry. The honourable thing for Dr. Jean Mathanga to do is to resign. Not tomorrow. Now.
Resignation is not weakness. It is accountability. It tells Malawians that public office is not a shield for excuses, but a seat of responsibility.
Keeping her in office after misleading the nation would confirm what many now suspect: that the DPP has failed, and it is failing with arrogance.
Malawians are not children to be pacified with numbers. We are citizens demanding fuel, light, and truth.
Until Dr. Mathanga produces the 243 tankers or produces her resignation letter, every blackout will remind us of her words, and every empty tank will echo her silence.
The country is waiting. The tankers are not. The minister must go.
