Members of Parliament have asked the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) to improve its fault clearing operations, stating that some faults are taking weeks to be resolved.
During a meeting the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Climate Change had with the electricity supplier in Zomba yesterday, the committee’s chairperson Werani Chilenga said customers are facing challenges when reporting faults.
“It takes more than one hour for a call to go through to the Escom call centre, and after that, it takes weeks for Escom workers to attend to the fault,” he said.
Ntchisi North East legislator Olipa Chimangeni said she reported a fault to Escom and it has been two weeks without being assisted.
The committee members asked Escom for assurance that service delivery will improve following the recent 16 percent increase in tariffs.
In response, Escom chief operations officer Maxwell Mulimakwenda admitted that customers are indeed conce r ned ab o u t t h e company’s service delivery.
He said, “In the short-term, we have engaged contractors for maintenance of infrastructure so that our staff can focus on clearing faults. In the medium term, we will be recruiting adequate linespersons.”
Mulimakwenda further stated that the parastatal plans to implement a project to undertake major rehabilitation of its infrastructure, which has aged.
Meanwhile, Escom plans to connect 235 000 households by 2028 under the $250.8 million (K439 billion) Accelerating Sustainable and Clean Energy Access Transformation (Ascent) initiative funded by the World Bank.
Escom has been allocated $150.8 mil lion (K264 billion) of the total funds for increasing electrification, while the Ministry of Energy is getting $100 million (K175 billion), out of which $60 million (about 105 billion) will be used for off-grid connections through solar home systems targeting 811 000 households.
The ministry has also set aside funds for 150 000 households to access clean cooking and for connecting 280 health centres and 1 000 schools to electricity.
Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Energy Alfonso Chikuni said government is committed to delivering the project so that Malawians can benefit in terms of access to energy.
Ascent is a successor pro jec t to the Ma lawi Electricity Access Project, which was launched in 2021 with 90 000 connections completed so far and 90 000 expected to be completed between March and June this year.
Under the National Energy Compact, Malawi seeks to increase electricity access from the current 25.9 percent to 70 percent by 2030, which will require a total additional 1.15 million on-grid connections and 1.55 million off-grid connections.
The country also targets to increase installed generation from 550 megawatts (MW) to about 1 490 MW by 2030.
