Energy minister gives blackout
Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola yesterday set out to establish the cause of the worsening power blackouts in the country, but ended up giving a news blackout on his findings.
The minister started his mission with a meeting with Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) management in Blantyre yesterday, before meeting Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) later in the day.
When approached for media interviews after the closed-door meeting with Egenco top officials, Matola indicated he would, by close of business yesterday, issue a statement after engaging Escom in the afternoon.
However, after a three-hour meeting with Escom top officials, the minister refused to inform the public through the media on what transpired in both meetings.
Matola said: “The rule of natural justice is to hear both parties on their side of the story and I have captured a lot from the two parties separately.
“I have established the cause of the intermittent power cuts, but I cannot spill the beans right now. I have to report to the President to get direction on how I should handle the same.”
President Lazarus Chakwera, in a brief Facebook post yesterday, said he had assigned the minister to establish the cause of the challenges.
The President wrote: “I have deployed the minister to hold meetings with Escom and Egenco to get to the bottom of the cause of the system shutdown that resulted in a nationwide blackout over the weekend, as well as to track the progress being made on rehabilitating the cyclone-damaged Power Station.”
Matola could not, however, indicate possible solutions and outcomes from the discussions, when the power outages would end and progress on the Kapichira Hydro Power Station rehabilitation.
He said: “We appreciate that Malawians are anxious to see an end to this, but we cannot promise anything as yet.
“We will try our best to resolve this issue maybe by Wednesday [tomorrow], but for today, we just established the root cause.”
Escom board chairperson Fredrick Changanya could equally not indicate the cause of the intermittent power cuts yesterday, saying the fact-finding mission instituted by the minister would reveal the cause.
He also disputed reports that the cause was on account ofnegligence on the part of Escom.
Changaya said: “There is too much sensationalisation where power is concerned because this is a sensitive product. We, however, plead for patience as we will consolidate a joint position with Escom to establish what exactly happened and come up with solutions.”
Malawians have been subjected to national blackouts experienced for three days in a row from Friday to Sunday.
On Friday, the system shutdown occurred at 11:51am, on Saturday at 5:36 pm while on Sunday a national blackout occurred at 07:37am
Presently, Malawi is experiencing an acute shortage of power supply which has been made worse by the non-availability of Kapichira Hydro Power Station that resulted in loss of 129 megawatts (MW) in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ana.
The country faces a 298MW power generation deficit following the commissioning of the 19.1MW Tedzani IV Hydro Power Station in July last year and the JCM Matswani Solar Corporation Limited 60MW plant in Salima.
