Power plant works set to miss deadline

Malawians will have to wait longer before electricity supply normalises as rehabilitation works to restore the 129.6 megawatts (MW) Kapichira Hydro Power Station in Chikwawa will miss the December 22 deadline.

This was revealed yesterday when the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Climate Change visited Kapichira Hydro Power Station to monitor progress of works.

Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) director of planning and development Labren Sondhi told parliamentarians that the project, which involves restoration of power generation and redesigning the whole dam structure to make it resilient to floods, faced operational challenges which stalled the project for some days.

He said Egenco has done most of the project plan as well as construction of the cofferdam, which is the main component of the project.

“The works stalled for some days as the financers of the project World Bank temporarily stopped the project after establishing that designs were not in line with their expectations,” said Sondhi.

He explained that the Ministry of Energy came in with new designs for the dam contrary to what was approved by the  World Bank, a move that prompted the Bretton Woods institution to temporarily stop the project.

He said this and a 10-day break from the project due to diesel scarcity led to loss of time.

Egenco senior public relations officer Moses Gwaza said in an interview that the completion of the project is now at the mercy of the World Bank who will set a new deadline after restarting the project.

He said: “We cannot confirm on a new date when we can have electricity back because according to the World Bank experts, we are going to have to restart construction of the cofferdam, but we have factors such as rains and resource availability that we have to look at.”

In early October, restoration works at the plant were at 45 percent, but yesterday Egenco officials could not indicate where they are at the present.

Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Climate Change chairperson Werani Chilenga described the situation as unfortunate, saying that could have been avoided if the company had maintained the original plan.

He said: “This is worrying information. We had expectations that the come December we will have power.

“Egenco is not to be blame. From the discussions, we have learnt that the ministry departed from the original design of the project which led to the temporary pause of the project.”

The Malawi Government borrowed from the World Bank $60 million (about K61.8 billion for energy restoration project.

Egenco is expected to spend about K46 billion to rehabilitate the plant and K16.8 billion will go to Escom to buy transformers damaged by the Tropical Storm Ana in January.