Well, now I can add another first to my list of activities I have participated in in Malawi. Yesterday (December 15) the driver for Farmers Union wasn't available so I was asked to drive our Lobbying and Advocacy Committee to the bus station. I agreed and we loaded up and drove to our local bus station. I expected to be back within about 15 minutes.
I pulled up to the station but there were no parking spots so I pulled over to the side of the road. The farmer leaders I was transporting got out of the car and I got out to get their bags out of the back of the pickup for them. I got back in the vehicle having been stopped for about 30 seconds. Behind me was another car stopped doing the same thing. Just as I went to drive away a police vehicle came racing in from a side street blocking the vehicle I was driving. Officers got out and one walked up to me and told me that I was under arrest and then walked away. I thought for a second that he was joking. I waited there while he went to tell the car behind me that they were also under arrest. The car behind me gunned it trying to race away. The police officer on foot ran alongside the car holding the passenger door handle. He was able to get it open and jump into the moving car. Once he was in the car the driver slammed on their brakes stopping the car and then they got out and ran away leaving the car with the police officer sitting in the passenger seat. It felt surreal as I watched the owner of the other car run away. At that point another police officer opened up my passenger door, and got into the Farmers Union vehicle. She said I was under arrest for stopping and letting people out of the car in a no parking zone. We had to proceed to the police station following the car without a driver driven by the other police officer. Once at the police station they looked at the vehicle and told me that one of the tires didn’t have enough tread and that would be a 3000 Kwacha (about $27) fine. Then the officers went off to discuss with other officers about the parking fine. They were speaking in Chichewa but an interesting quirk of Malawi is that they use English for numbers so I could hear them discussing 3000 Kwacha or 6000 Kwacha. Knowing that I had done nothing other than stop to let people out of the car I was pretty sure it would have to be the lower of the two fines they were discussing.
Despite this I wasn’t that surprised when the officers returned to tell me that I was being fined K 6000 plus K 6000 for the tire. I told them that the tire was not a danger and that I did not want to pay a fine for a tire that was working fine on a vehicle that I didn’t own. They seemed to agree to this but still wanted me to pay K 6000 for what they called “dangerous parking”. I did not want to pay such a fine so I told them that I knew full well that the statute that I was in violation of was not dangerous parking but rather parking in a no parking zone (I was completely bluffing I am not familiar with the parking statutes) which is only a K 3000 fine. They looked at each other, discussed with each other for a second and agreed with me. So I paid the fine and insisted on a receipt that declared what I was being charged with. The whole process took over an hour and I felt especially bad because there was still one board member with me the whole time. When I got back to the office our driver was there and he told me that he wasn’t surprised that I had been nabbed as they ramp up their enforcement of minor offences like this before Christmas looking for extra income he said. Unfortunately for them I actually went to the police station with them and insisted on official receipts.
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