By Kingsley Jassi:
The power industry may have increased electricity access from 11 percent to 25.9 percent but user experience appears to have been left behind following incessant blackouts.
The sector has mixed trends: on one side the World Bank is celebrating gains in electricity access expansion, on the other side SMEs and the general public are complaining about power interruptions.
The World Bank has just reported about Malawi Electricity Access Project (Meap) milestones with two million people to have benefitted from new connections, with 160 000 new grid connections that have seen new businesses mushrooming.
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“Electricity access has enabled small-scale economic activity— including retail shops, phonecharging businesses and food processing—creating new job opportunities, particularly for women in newly connected communities,” reads a World Bank update on the project.
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Apparently, the efforts on the new connections have not been matched with power generation as Escom continues to struggle with adequate supply.
On Friday, Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) officials told Parliamentary Committee on Government Assurance and Public Sector Reforms members that the power system had massive breakdowns and standby generators could not be supplied with enough diesel due to supply issues.
The company’s director of planning, Jeddie Luka, said, in total, the system has lost 100 megawatts, leading to substantially low power supply to Escom.
This has a toll on business operations and Malawi Union of SMEs President James Chiutsi said its members experience rising cost of energy in businesses.
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“A rapid survey of 30 SMEs in Lilongwe, Blantyre, and Mzuzu shows that 27 businesses now spend over 30 percent of their monthly operating costs on diesel and petrol for generators. Many report spending between K200,000 and K450,000 per month on fuel alone,” Chiutsi said.
Econom ics Association of Malawi President Bertha Chikadza said authorities should prioritise strategic interventions that move beyond short-term fixes, citing the Malawi-Mozambique power interconnection project as critical.
