Malawi gov’t repossesses its lake service from private contractor

The Malawi government has repossessed the operations of the Malawi Lake Services (MLS), the main company operating and managing passenger, freight services and shipyard operations of vessels plying on Lake Malawi, from the Glens Waterways Limited (GWL) which had won tender to run the services on Africa’s third largest freshwater lake, APA learnt here Thursday.

According to spokesperson Owen Singini of the Marine Department, the state arm responsible for the MLS, the government had awarded a five-year concession for the management and operations of MLS assets to GWL, but the latter had failed to fulfill some of the provisions of the agreements.

Given the importance that government attached to the transport sector, he said, government has now determined that the way forward was for the GWL to hand over the concession and a new operator would be identified through the Privatisation Commission (PC) to takeover the operations and management of the MLS.

Singini said as the process of identifying a new operator was already underway, and the MLS will for the moment operate under an interim management from the Marine Department of the Ministry of Transport and Public Works.

MLS has a fleet of seven lake vessels with a capacity of transporting general cargo, passengers, petroleum products and other containers along the 500-km long Lake Malawi.