VUBWI Catholic Parish priest Father Evans Miti has said Malawian authorities at Mwami border post have started demanding passports from Vubwi residents who pass through Malawi when going to Chipata.

In an interview Fr Miti said Vubwi residents in Chadiza were forced to pass through Malawi when travelling to Chipata because of the bad state of the Vubwi-Chipata road.

"You know the Vubwi road is impassable. Two bridges are gone so for us to come here we used the Malawi road which is a bit ok. Now the inconvenience is at the border...they ask us for passports and documents. Now if you have poor people from Zambia passing through that place every time how are they going to manage to secure all those documents? he asked.

"So what we are asking is that they should be lenient at the border when we use the Malawi road so that we should be using that road failure to that then will have a problem in Vubwi."

He said it was sad that the contractors who were working on the Vubwi - Chipata road had been on site for the past one year six months but the road had remained in a bad state.

" This is a problem, which the area MP (Eustarckio Kazonga) has to do something. Even as we talk of health, we have an ambulance but most people come to the parish to ask for transport then we wonder what is the purpose of the ambulance which has been brought to Vubwi. So really transport and the road network need to be looked into."

Fr Miti wondered how fertiliser would be delivered to Mungwi with such a road.
He said when the clergy talk about problems that people were facing, government should not take them as enemies.

"Actually we are partners in development with government. The Catholic Church only says something when it sees that something is wrong.

In fact, we just enlighten the government to do something perhaps some people do not tell them the truth, when we speak, we speak out of love not hatred," said Fr Miti.