The rapid rise of motorcycle taxis locally known as kabaza has created livelihoods for thousands but also a mounting public-health and fiscal crisis. Between 2022 and 2025, road-traffic authorities link 979 deaths and more than 2 000 serious injuries to motorcycle crashes, while each bone fracture treated at specialist hospitals is estimated to cost about K5 million, placing enormous strain on families and the health system. A visit to the surgical ward at the Lilongwe Institute of Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery (Lion) reveals the scale of the problem as a ward built for roughly 60 patients now holds about 146, many with blood-stained bandages and multiple fractures.
The air is heavy with pain and the low moans of those awaiting or recovering from surgery. One patient, Innocent Phiri of Chilinde Township, described being struck by a car on Christmas Eve while riding a motorcycle taxi. He suffered multiple fractures to both legs and has since undergone surgery.
“A Mira vehicle was trying to overtake a minibus when they hit me,” he said, adding that he learned to ride informally and did not hold a licence. Another victim, Jenifer Salimoni, a rare female kabaza rider from Kasiya, sustained jaw and leg injuries after swerving to avoid goats on December 21 2025. She, too, had no formal riding training.
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Lion’s medical director, Boston Munthali, said the hospital treats more than 2 000 motorcycle-accident patients annually and performs roughly 300 operations a month. He warned that the financial burden is unsustainable: “Each bone fracture is estimated to cost an average of K5 million. At the rate we are treating patients, the burden is too much.” “It is expensive to treat a patient with fractured bones.
Each bone fracture is estimated to cost an average of K5 million. So at the rate at which we are treating patients here, the burden is too much. “In 2023 for example, we treated 1 330 patients, in 2024 we treated 2 085 patients involved in motorcycle taxis accidents and by June of 2025, we had registered over 1 000 accidents.
We have tried several avenues to help in sensitising the concerned stakeholders with an aim of reducing these accidents but we see that it all goes down to lack of political will.” Munthali added that from statistics, all riders admitted at the facility confessed that they did not have driver’s licence and neither did they register their motorcycles nor insure them. He said the data shows huge gaps that exist in regulating the booming business of kabaza which is becoming a killer on the roads. On national level, despite statistics from the Malawi Police Service (MPS) showing that overall road accidents declined by 11 percent in 2025 with 3 527 accidents recorded compared to 3 947 in 2024, accidents caused by motorcycle taxis, commonly known as kabaza rose by 11 percent.
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