Power inter connector project delay worries Malawi Govt

Ministry of Energy has written the Indian Government to express its concern with delays by the contractor of the Malawi-Mozambique Power Interconnection Project.

The ministry’s director of electricity Million Mafuta and chief energy officer Austin Theu confirmed the development in separate interviews on Monday.

Said Mafuta: “We wrote the Indian Government expressing our concern over persistent delays of the project by the contractor and last month we received a response from Indian Government on the same.

“I can assure you that since the time we got that response, we have noticed some improvement on the project.”

He could not state whether the project will beat its October deadline.

But Theu said the actual projection on whether the project will meet the October deadline will be assessed with the Interconnector Implementation Unit, which is jointly run by officials from the Ministry of Energy and a team from Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom).

Escom chief operations officer Maxwell Mulimakwenda, who is also the interconnector project coordinator, was not immediately available for comment, but he earlier admitted that the project is moving slowly because it involves two countries.

“Projects of this nature face delays. This is a big project and there are a lot of things involved,” he said.

The 218-kilometre 400 kilovolts high voltage transmission line under the Malawi- Mozambique Power Transmission Interconnection Project missed its initial deadline of December 2023.

In November 2021, President Lazarus Chakwera and his Mozambique counterpart Felipe Nyusi presided over the launch of construction works for the project.

However, construction works only started in March 2023, with the contractor, Larsen and Toubro Limited, an Indian multinational construction firm, assuring that they would finish by December 2023.

Larsen and Toubro is executing the project alongside Gola Civil Engineering Contractors Limited, a local firm.

The transmission line starts from Matambo in Mozambique up to Phombeya Power Sub Station in Balaka District.

The project will enable Malawi to tap 120 megawatts (MW) to improve power supply locally.

According to Mafuta, as of April 2024, progress of the whole project was at 39 percent because of several delays on the Mozambican side.

The power interconnection project was abandoned in 2011 after the Malawi Government said the initiative was costly.

It was later signed by the two governments in April 2013 and the process has continued since then.