Douglas Kamanga and his entourage interacting with customers
* Launched in June this year to upgrade all the 537,000 prepaid meters
* Currently, we’ve done 20% because out of our targeted 537,000 meters, 94, 879 have been upgraded
* This has been so because our customers are able to understand the project and it’s importance
By Victor Singano Jnr
Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) says it is impressed with the response and cooperation being shown by its customers in the ongoing and newly launched project called, Token Identifiers (TID).
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The project, which was launched in June this year and is expected to end in November 2024, was introduced with the aim of upgrading all the 537,000 prepaid meters — which include those used in the maize mills, schools, shops among others in order to comply with the international standards under the STS Association.
During the upgrading process and monitoring of the project in some buildings in Chirimba and Lunzu areas of Blantyre, ESCOM Revenue Protection Manager, Douglas Kamanga said the project is going on smoothly and that the majority of their customers have welcomed it — a development which he said will assist them to complete implementing the program in time.
“Currently, we’ve done 20% because out of our targeted 537,000 meters, 94, 879 have been upgraded,” Kamanga said. “This has been so because our customers are able to understand the project and it’s importance.”
He, however, complained over some unscrupulous people who are taking advantage of the project by going out into other houses and pose themselves as ESCOM officials, who demand money in order to upgrade their meters through TID.
Douglas Kamanga
“Let the public know that the TID project is being implemented for free and no one should come and cheat them by asking for money and once they are approached by such people they should report them to police,” he said.
A Chirimba-based customer, Cecilia Kuluwani described the system as a great move adding that the change of meters is not bringing any negative outcome and that people should not have any doubts or fear about the project.
Currently, ESCOM has started implanting the project in major cities namely, Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu and it is expected to be taken to the districts across the country in the coming few weeks.
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Launched in June, the TID is compliance with new international requirements for transfer of electricity prepayment tokens, and announcing the development in Blantyre then, ESCOM’s Chief Operations Officer, Maxwell Mulimakwenda emphasised that every country in the world is being required to carry out this system upgrade, saying the last operation was done in 1993.
He said TID has a lifespan of 31.9 years and the current security lifespan will expire on November 24, 2024 — thus ESCOM rolling out the exercise well in advance in order to service all of its 537,000 prepaid meters on the network.
From June 1, customers have been receiving three once-off tokens once they replenish their units and the first two will indicate 20 digits as change tokens and the third will be the normal electricity units.
Customers are advised to first load into their meters all tokens of units bought prior to the TID rollover before entering the the key change tokens as failure to do the configured TID rollover shall reject those unused units and that ESCOM shall not be liable to this rejection.
Customers must also ensure that their meter is reconfigured by entering the Key Change Tokens in the rightful order as advised on the receipt slip of the notification SMS from Mpamba, Airtel Money or Bank accounts.
After successful completion of the Key Change process, customers will thereafter continue to receive one token for units that will be purchased.
Mulimakwenda further explained that ESCOM’s prepaid meters use a secure communication protocol to transfer information from the point of sale (POS) vending point to the energy meter which is call Standard Transfer Specification, saying the “20-digit token that customers receive has inbuilt unique security code thus named as Token Identifier — which is time stamped”.
“After 24th November 2024, meters that have not been rolled over will not accept any new token and that the next TID rollover process will take place in 2045.”
Mulimakwenda also announced that the rollout process will be done in a controlled program to run concurrently in all the four regions of the South, East, Central and North — starting with the cities of Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu before servicing the rest of the districts.
In each of the cities and districts, the project will run by location and follow detailed schedule that will be published in advance and that customer sensitization will be run throughout using print, audio, television and social media.
Further, a dedicated ESCOM field personnel will be expected to attend to customers experiencing challenges the process and that a dedicated helpline is available and published in all the four regions — and Mulimakwenda implored on the customers to “strictly report TID issues and not normal faults”.
This TID helpline will be available throughout the project period from 07:00hrs to 17:00hrs — Monday to Sunday.—Additional reporting by Duncan Mlanjira, Maravi Express
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