The Capital Hill, seat of the Malawi Government
* Pay in full all outstanding balances and to check with the power utility if their current bills have not been received
By Duncan Mlanjira
Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) has announced countrywide power disconnections from Monday, August 28 on all overdue accounts — including Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), which are ESCOM’s biggest debtor and consumer.
In a public notice, ESCOM is advising customers to pay in full all outstanding balances and to check with the power utility if their current bills have not been received.
It also said reconnection of power supply will be done within 48 hours upon receipt of the full outstanding amount plus a reconnection fee and for more information — STRICTLY on the disconnection exercise — customers are advised to contact the following numbers:
Southern Region: 0999953503
Central Region: 0881273369
Northern Region: 0888870304
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Last year, when Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) announced that it was reviewing an application from ESCOM proposing an increase base of power tariff for the next 4 years, Consumer Association of Malawi (CAMA) indicated that the company needed to improve on critical Key Performance Indicators because an increase in tariff alone would “not get them out of the mess they found themselves in”.
The Key Performance Indicators that CAMA highlighted included “collection efficiency”, saying: “ESCOM’s biggest debtor and consumer is Government and ESCOM is failing to collect its debt from Government and this has affected the operations of ESCOM.
“These are revenues if collected can assist ESCOM to implement most of its functions and overall its collection efficiency is one of the poorest that cannot sustain its operations.
Another Key Performance Indicator was sales revenue, saying it has been decreasing over the past years and partly attributed to the shutting down of Kapichira and the discontinued use of Aggrekko Diesel gensets — and CAMA maintained that “this had nothing to do with the tariff”.
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CAMA also said energy sales “went down drastically and ESCOM was unable to find alternatives and this has reduced their revenues as a result of continued blackouts [then] without taking measures to restructure its heavy bloated and expensive structure.
On connection targets of new customers), CAMA said access to electricity in Malawi was at approximately 12% in 2022 and ESCOM was “still struggling and failing to meet its targets on new connections and they have failed badly under this Key Performance Indicator.
“The number of consumers connected to electricity during this phase is so negligible while Consumers continued demand connectivity.”
ESCOM was also accused of making heavy system losses which continue draining the company’s revenue generation.
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