Those of you who are celebrating the rumours that Shoprites is leaving Malawi have got your panties in an almighty twist.

Firstly, kodi mukawapasa ma employees awo ntchito ku chigayo cha ambuyanu akaleketsedwa ntchito?

Ayi, nde pompo apo there’s a huge disconnect. Clearly, you don’t understand what the local man, the common person goes through, aJemusi ndi amache Suzanna, or whatever name sounds familiarly local to you. If you did you wouldn’t be celebrating such things. You may have a house maid and a house boy koma you don’t get it…

Shoprite leaving doesn’t immediately lead to Malawians starting to buy local. People buy local anyway. They just also like going to these things we call supermarkets.
In the countries that Shoprite has left, what verifiable data exists which shows that the vegetable farmers and others have since struck gold?
It’s all wishful thinking, in the current Malawian economy, mwina anthu ayamba kulima kwambiri mu ma dimba…?
So your fictional vegetable lady still won’t make a million kwacha selling her vegetables because Shoprite has left town 

#Shoprite employs around 500 people in #Malawi. I bet those celebrating didn’t know that. That’s quite a sizeable number.

All those people will need jobs, nde economy yake itiyo which will absorb such job seekers just like that, especially if they’re unskilled…?

What about their children? Are you saying your cheap political hatred of such corporations, or let’s call it what it is, xenophobia, is worth the suffering of poor families…?

Kumaganiza bho bho anthuni! After all not everyone can work in a law firm, in some university or hussle about going to #Dubai and back, to buy things for resale.

Some people just want a simple job where they could go to in the morning, and return from in the evening… without having an argument with a cruel boss, or being looked down by snooty workmates.

Also, you’re not thinking that the gap left by Shoprite, if they do indeed leave, could be filled by a worse supermarket, which our incompetent authorities will fail to chastise – when they do something wrong like mistreating their employees. Who is to say that wouldn’t happen, i mean you’re failing to jail Norman Chisale or to convict Zuneth Sattar, there’s no guarantee you would successfully clamp down on a rogue supermarket…if it showed up…?

And before you say it, it’s not a class thing. Ku Malawi ma social classi ake atiwo? Komabe mwina enanu who have graduated into what you’d call a middle class, who wear your suits to work every day and sit in large office chairs, who have a small battalion of glorified messengers ndi ti ma claliki at your service, although you use the same pot-hole filled roads, ndipo kumuzi kwanu is no richer than ku Bangula, and you still need burglar bars on your Chinyonga houses, maybe you’ve forgotten that anthu ena need these low-skilled jobs just to survive. Get off your high horse and for once learn to empathize with people who have had lesser fortunes than yourself!

Now, let me address this little issue about Shoprites sourcing of products.

Why are you mad that one successful company is doing what works for them?

Isn’t it a bit ignorant, because even Britain imports milk and milk products from as far as New Zealand! Yes, 11,400 bloody miles away from the UK!
But Britain has cows…9.4 million of them, and lots of farmers who, you know, sell milk…
The US imports shrimp from Thailand! That’s 8,600 miles away from the US!
It doesn’t affect the shrimp farmers of Florida olo ata!
Nde inuyo zimene amapanga aShopritizo zimakuwawani bwanji?
Why don’t you start your own supermarket and show us how supply chain should be done?

I’ll leave you with an idea: maybe the day you should celebrate the withdrawal of a supermarket is the day the likes of Shoprite leave because they are failing to fill vacancies because our unemployment rate is too low and we have local supermarkets that pay better wages than them. Either that or when the official Minimum wage in Malawi reaches $20 a hour, and is better than the minimum wages of the US, Japan and the UK!