Investment in energy critical to MW2063 success

To many Malawian electricity consumers, having uninterrupted supply in a 24-hour cycle is a cause for celebration and at the same time surprise. It rarely happens such that one is tempted to call the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi call centre to report the same as a fault!

Year in and year out, Malawians are subjected to electricity supply rationing due to various factors. If it is not damage to the generation or transmission equipment caused by natural disasters, then it is vandalism contributing to power supply disruptions.

Besides the natural disasters or vandalism, poor or low financial investment in the energy sector by most African governments, including Malawi, has extensively contributed to the shaky energy mix.

Malawi is currently facing an acute power deficit, subjecting households and firms to eight-hour-plus load-shedding daily following the damage to Kapichira Hydro Power Station in January this year caused by Tropical Storm Ana. The damage took off the grid 130 megawatts (MW).

In the meantime, State-owned Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) is producing about 220MW while independent power producer (IPP) JCM Power is generating at least 60MW from solar. This is against an estimated demand of 600MW, according to the 2021 Malawi Government Annual Economic Report.

Businesses have been forced to scale down on production as some of them, especially small and medium enterprises operate largely from residential areas which are hit hard by the prolonged power outages. Production costs have gone up as some businesses opt for alternative sources of power, mostly diesel-operated generators.

Electricity is a critical factor of production as well as economic growth. Multiple international research findings show a strong and direct linkage between access to electricity and electricity consumption to poverty reduction, social well-being and economic growth in general.

Unfortunately, Sub-Saharan Africa, where Malawi lies, has the lowest access to electricity among the world’s regions with an average of 22 percent as of 2015. This is in sharp contrast to 80 percent access in Latin America and 60 percent in South Asia. Malawi is on the lower end in terms of Sub-Saharan Africa electricity access with about 12 percent of the population connected to the national grid.

President Lazarus Chakwera dreams to add 1 000MW into the national grid from various sources by 2025, that is three years from now if his State of the Nation Address delivered in Parliament in Lilongwe on February 3 2022 is anything to go by.

Problems are inevitable in human undertakings, but it is how such crises are resolved that makes a difference. The Kapichira incident was an emergency, but the response by the country has been less inspiring, I must say. Like seriously, did we have to wait for the World Bank to process the financing for the rehabilitation? Resources could easily have been drawn from the emergency votes to address the situation. Progress of Kapichira rehabilitation, which started in September, is estimated at 50 percent.

I am not excited with most of the projects appearing on paper as seeking to increase electricity production as I have heard about some of them for the past 20 years or so with nothing really to show for. Talk of Lower Fufu, the Malawi-Mozambique Interconnection Project, they have always been in the plans and recently several others were added to the list.

Like the biblical Thomas Didymus, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ who could only believe that Jesus had risen after dipping his fingers in the wounds He was nailed to the Cross, I will only get excited the day the ambitious projects come into fruition and Malawians will have access to power around the clock.

In the Energy Policy of 2008, the Malawi Government committed to increase electricity access to 30 percent of the population by 2020, a target which has been missed. The country now hopes to achieve the same by 2030.

Unreliable power supply derails economic growth. It is a disincentive when it comes to attracting foreign direct investment. It is estimated that power outages or blackouts, the new normal in Malawi, reduce economic growth by between two percent and four percent.

Malawi needed to address the energy woes as soon as yesterday if it is to set a good foundation for the achievement of the aspirations in the Malawi 2063, the country’s long-term development strategy. Energy is critical to driving the development agenda.

Businesses can’t breathe. Households too are squeezed. The economy is bleeding. Fix the energy woes and the rest in the puzzle will into their places.