Bunda Filling Station to fuel development at LUANAR

Construction of the K400 million Bunda Campus Service Station is going to fuel more developments at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), chairman of the university’s Council Professor James Seyani has said.

Seyani made the remarks on Tuesday when he officially launched the newly constructed filling station, which will be run under Bunda Farm Limited, a commercial entity that has been championing most of the developments at LUANAR’s Bunda campus.

“Since its inception as an institution of higher learning, LUANAR has been operating a fuel pump largely on non-commercial basis but as part of the Public Sector Reforms, the LUANAR Council endorsed an initiative by the university management to commercialise its current fuel pump by constructing a new and modern filling station and relocating it to a more spacious and easily accessible location.

“This business initiative is one way of diversifying the university’s revenue base to reduce the financing gap that the college has been experiencing. It is also going to under-cut the costs associated with out-sourcing fuel from other filling stations.

“Furthermore, the filling station will be used as a teaching and learning toll for students, who are going to experience real life experience in business management,” said Seyani.

LUANAR Acting Vice Chancellor Emmanuel Kaunda described the filling station project as a clear productive Private-Public Partnership (PPP) that he said will help in the transformation of higher education in Malawi.

Kaunda hailed PUMA Energy for providing the fuel tanks and pumps for free and offering to sell the fuel at a subsidised cost.

PUMA Energy managing director Davies Lanjesi said his company decided to offer the subsidy to enable the college maximise profits from the business and use the resources to offer quality education.

He pledged that the company would offer free training in customer service to the site staff: “We want motorists to be attracted to come here. By buying fuel from here, motorists will be contributing towards quality education,” said Lanjesi.

Sharing is caring!