Why always Escom?
The Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) is again in the news for some suspicious dealings.
Of the many parastatals in the country, Escom deserves the moniker ‘Serial Blunderers’ because they just cannot do anything right. Right now, Escom is on every person’s lips because of its failure to supply electricity to people.
Malawians have been taken back to the Dark Ages going days without electricity. The never-ending blackouts have hit hard both domestic and industrial users of electricity, thus giving a fatal blow to our already ailing economy.
It was once thought that perhaps it was such a huge ask that Escom should be both generator and supplier and that it should be unbundled to create its sister Electricity Generation Company (Egenco), but the move is as good as it never happened.
While we thought that Escom is busy looking for solutions to bring to an end these torturous power outages, the corporation is preoccupied with something else: shady dealings.
It raises a million eyebrows while Escom silently awarded a contract back to a company which the Office of the Director of Procurement (ODPP) found in the wrong during the tendering process.
Secondly, it also raises suspicions why Escom wants to be procuring fuel from National Oil Company of Malawi, yet it is not its duty to do so.
The actions of Escom lend credence and substance to the beliefs that there are too many underhand dealings at the corporation which are making it fail to perform as expected by people.
The questions we should be asking are: why is Escom insisting on awarding the contract to Aggreko? Did the ODPP clear the company?
All we are saying is that we have had enough of Escom’s mess and something needs to be done. Escom management’s conduct is suspicious and needs to be investigated thoroughly; otherwise, this will be another scam, if it is not already.
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