President Arthur Peter Mutharika has appealed for patience on the electricity woes the country is currently facing.
Mutharika was speaking when he “stormed” in a meeting of senior Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) and Electricity Generation Company officials in the morning hours today at Umoyo House in Blantyre.
Mutharika said that his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) led government has put the electricity woes as a priority and gave assurance that the problem will hopefully be minimized by next year as there are solutions that the two companies are putting in place to help the country both in the short term, medium term and long term.
“I am obviously concerned about the power problems we are having in this country because without power we cannot transform this country. Investors cannot come because there is no power, so power is very crucial and we have put it as a priority. I know that the blackouts are very painful, they are hurting people and businesses and so on and so forth, and I know what the country is going through,” Mutharika said.
Mutharika further stressed that the problem lies on the fact that as a country, we have never invested in the energy sector all these years hence this is the first time the country will be investing in the sector.
In his remarks, Egenco chief executive officer William Liabunya reiterated the company’s stand that the low water levels in Lake Malawi and the Shire River have negatively impacted on the country’s generation capacity.
He said: “This year and last year have been the worst as the water levels have been decreasing sharply but with some of our short term and long term solutions, we are hopeful that by the end of this year there will be improvement.”
Escom chief executive officer Evelyn Mwapasa also said that the current generation capacity is less as demand is 300 megawatts while its sister company Egenco, is producing a total of 160 megawatts.
