Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola has urged Escom to improve on the efficiency of its operations and procurement systems after the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) handed over a single-buyer licence to the company.
Briefing journalists in Lilongwe yesterday, the minister said the government terminated operations of Power Marketing Limited (PML) and handed the single-buyer licence back to Escom.
Said Matola: “Unbundling Escom into Egenco [Energy Generation Company] and PML raised the administrative costs in the energy sector. We had to pay the boards and chief executive officers when the revenue generation capacity was the same. This will normalise the situation.”
The single-buyer licence was handed to PML, a now-defunct parastatal that was established as part of the power sector reforms under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) energy compact.
The reforms were put in place to improve power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Matola said the government’s re-organisation of Escom and retransfer of the single-buyer agreement should put the parastatal in a good position to fulfil its mandate as a single buyer licence, as such, he expects it to be more efficient with the resources at its disposal.
Speaking in an interview, Escom chief operations officer Maxwell Mulimakwenda said his institution is ready to step up to the plate and deliver on its mandate as a single purchase licencee.
“We have also been developing contracts with independent power producers and enforcing terms of power generation contracts.
“We will be able to tell IPPs on the equipment we want to be installed to generate the agreed quantities of electricity,” he said.
