The Malawi Rural Electrification Programme (Marep Phase 9) is expected to miss the second deadline of August 2024 with authorities now eying October 2024.
The project, which had been facing delays since 2020 at procurement and contracting stages, was initially planned to be completed on 31 March, 2024.
In an earlier interview, Ministry of Energy Principal Secretary Alfonso Chikuni said the March 31 deadline was not practical as construction of the power lines started late.
He said work in some sites started in January this year while in other sites it started in February.
“When we were setting the March 31 target, the plan was that we will sign contracts by September 2023. However, contracts were signed in December and contractors started work in January, 2024 while others started in February,” said Chikuni.
On resources, he said they are available, but he feared that the programme will face challenges towards the end due to a K40 billion deficit.
Meanwhile, chief energy officer in the Ministry of Energy Austin Theu said the project which is connecting 438 sites is now expected to be completed in October, two months later than the recently set deadline.
Theu said: “Most contractors have made significant progress on the sites and we expect the few that experienced some delays to finalize everything within a month or two after the August deadline.”
According to Theu, Marep Phase 9 will connect 438 sites across the country with an average of 175 households’ connections per site.
In a separate interview, Chairperson of Natural Resources and Climate Change Committee of Parliament Werani Chilenga whose committee inspected some sites of the project in Chikwawa and Machinga recently, said he is impressed with the progress.
“So far so good, we are very impressed with the Ministry of Energy’s progress and we hope that the scenario we saw in Chikwawa and Mulanje is the same with all sites because we have been told, for example, in Chikwawa, the site will be electrified by next week.
“This project is long overdue because of challenges the ministry was facing like forex acquisition and other issues with contractors so we are glad that those were sorted out,” Chilenga said.
Among others, Marep is funded through a rural electrification levy in the petroleum pump price build up.
Initially, Marep 9 was estimated to cost K40 billion in 2022, but due to devaluation of the kwacha and other factors it was revised to K70 billion.
Marep was mooted to increase access to electricity, especially in rural areas where just about five percent of the population is connected.
The Marep 9 planning started in 2019 but four years down the line, the programme has not been completed due to a number of challenges.
The first tender for the supply of Marep 9 materials was floated in May 2020. However, the Tonse Alliance administration suspended issuance of new contracts in June 2020, a development which led to the expiry of bid validities.
Upon lifting of the ban, retendering began, but the process was stopped again by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) because of some irregularities reported to and confirmed by the ACB.
Procurement of contractors for construction of the power lines also experienced delays in granting of no objection
Marep started in 1980 under Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi as the implementing agency through donor financing. In 1995, the Government of Malawi took over implementation of the programme with the Department of Energy as the implementing agency.
