The newly-appointed board of Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has decried operational inefficiencies, citing shortages of mobility and technical resources as undermining service reliability and eroding public confidence in the parastatal.
From a governance standpoint, the board acknowledged that persistence gaps in mobility, tools, spares and technical resources pose a direct threat to service delivery and consumer trust.
But social and consumer rights advocates have urged the new Escom board to move swiftly to address skills deficits in critical technical areas, sluggish decision-making, huge appetite for luxuries and long-standing governance weaknesses.
In an email response yesterday, Escom board chairperson Alfred Nhlema said operational reviews and consequence management would be introduced to ensure that underperformance is tackled promptly and best practices replicated.
During his tenure, Nhlema has pledged to translate governance decisions into tangible operational improvements, restoring reliability and rebuilding confidence through measurable outcomes.
“The board intends to reposition operational capacity as a top strategic and enterprise risk, ensuring board-level oversight of response times, maintenance backlogs and network reliability,” he said.
Nhlema said accountability would be strengthened through performance contracting, linking executive performance directly to service restoration, uptime and customer responsiveness.
The new board has come at a time the 2024/25 Consolidate Report for State-owned Enterprises in Malawi by the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Decentralisation shows that the utility’s profitability position improved in 2025, driven by strong growth in revenue and a substantial reduction in operating losses.
The report said the firm’s gross profit rose from K113.09 billion to K171.86 billion, reflecting both higher sales volumes and improved cost management, even though cost of sales increased to K130.81 billion from K111.05 billion.
On the flipside, the report indicated that Escom’s insolvency remains weak with total liabilities climbing from K509.56 billion in 2024 to K648.62 billion in 2025, largely due to long-term borrowings rising from K249.31 billion to K324.82 billion.
The utility continues to rely heavily on government support, with grants and capital contributions increasing to K173.62 billion in 2025 from K147.55 billion the previous year, highlighting the continued reliance on public funding for major infrastructure development.
In an interview yesterday, Consumers Association of Malawi executive director John Kapito said Escom needs improved infrastructure, further noting that electricity generation remains low.
He said: “If I was the one appointing, I wouldn’t have been bothered about bringing in a new board or anything else. I would have just said, as a shareholder, this is what I have, I am giving you more power generation and we move.
“Without power, whatever efforts are being made, are nothing. So, it will be a challenge to go out and then we are going to have a lot of meetings back again to score points. We need a technical team at the top that can deliver.”
Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation executive director Michael Kaiyatsa agreed, saying over the years, weak oversight and the absence of consequence management have allowed underperformance to persist without accountability.
He said the Escom Board must insulate operational decisions from political interference, act decisively on audit findings and report openly to the public. Without visible accountability and measurable improvements, claims of reform will remain hollow and public trust will continue to erode.
Mzuzu-based social commentator Isaac Cheke-Ziba said weak, inefficient revenue collection and management and electricity theft limit Escom’s ability to reinvest in the network.
Malawi has a total installed electricity capacity of 554.24 megawatts (MW) comprising 401.8MW from hydro, 51.4MW from diesel power generation and 101MW from solar sources, according to Escom data.
