By Brighton Chimsinde

Mchinji, February 27, Mana: Mchinji District Council’s Director of Planning and Development Martin Pindankono has pointed out fuel scarcity and inflation as among other challenges facing the implementation of the infrastructure projects in the district.  

Pindankono said this on Wednesday when he was supervising some of the infrastructure development projects that were carried out by the council across the district.

He said during the implementation of the infrastructure projects they were facing several challenges and among them were fuel scarcity and inflation.

“We face several challenges but major challenges are fuel scarcity the country had and inflation that have led to rapid price increases of materials on the market making contractors hesitant to continue with the projects.

“Despite these challenges, it is encouraging to observe that all the projects that were initiated in 2022/2023 were completed and 2023/2024 projects are at advanced stages thus some of them are expected to be completed by the end of March 2025,” Pindankono said.

The council was implementing the projects with monetary grants from Performance Based Grants (PBG), District Development Fund (DDF), and Constituency Development Funds (CDF) among others.

Director of one of the contractors Pangano Chinkanda from UPFOLD Contractors and General Suppliers who was assigned to construct Kapiri Community Centre Stadium expressed concern that fuel scarcity and the devaluation of Malawi Kwacha currency have caused the escalating cost of construction materials.

“In August last year, a bag of cement was at K9, 000 but as I am speaking the bag is costing us more than K30,000. On top of that, ferrying the construction materials to the site is also exorbitant due to the fuel scarcity on the market at that time,” said Chinkanda.

In her comment, Catherin Banda, a youth member of Mkanda Youth Centre which is under construction said she is happy that infrastructure development is taking shape.

“We have benefitted from the council’s infrastructure development through Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD). Upon completion it would provide quality services to the youths of Traditional Authority Mkanda and surrounding areas,” said Banda.,

Mchinji has an ambitious plan to carry out various infrastructure developments for it to accomplish its vision of becoming a model district council in the provision of sustained quality socio-economic services.