Electricity connection backlog bothers minister
Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola Thursday told Parliament that state-run Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has a backlog of over 60,000 applicants for electricity connection, which he said will need more time to be cleared.
Matola was responding to a question from Zomba Lisanjala legislator William Susuwele Banda on Escom’s policy—which he said requires an applicant to buy the materials required for electricity connection.
Matola admitted that Escom asks applicants to buy materials whenever they want to be connected to the national grid.
But he said his ministry will come up with a statement on the matter because the arrangement gives room for corruption and vandalism as materials stolen from the corporation finds its way back on the market.
“It has indeed been going on like that because of the capacity of Escom, which is mandated to provide services for transmission and distribution [of electricity], hence they came up with a principal asking the customers to buy the material,” he said.
Matola said the ministry would look for a way of addressing the matter because the policy hinders people who are willing to be connected.
“We are going to look into it because we have a backlog of more than 60,000 since 2016 up to now, then we have new applicants,” he said.
In March, Escom said, during new connections, an individual customer contributes K93,200 towards the average cost of K365,000 per connection and Escom contributes K271,800.
The utility body confessed that it is failing to raise a top up of K271,800 for an individual single-phase customer.
Mathews Kasanda is a journalist who holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from University of Malawi (The Polytechnic).
In 2015, Media Institute of Southern Africa awarded him the Best Print Media Education Journalist of the Year accolade.
He joined Times Group Newsroom in September 2019.
