The Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has indicated that erratic services that the corporation’s customers are experiencing are a result of the process to transition to new prepaid and post-paid billing systems.
When contacted yesterday [Sunday], Escom Public Relations Manager, George Mituka, said the corporation is aware of the challenges its customers are experiencing, saying engineers are working around the clock to resolve the problems.
“These are teething problem resulting from the process to change to the new billing platforms but, we are working on the problems and we want to assure our customers that these will be resolved as soon as possible,” he said.
Escom has further advised its customers to follow the right procedure when entering new key tokens to be used in the new billing platforms.
A statement from Escom indicates that, from January 24, its customers will be provided with three once-off tokens when they purchase electricity units; Key Change Token 1; Key Change Token 2 and the Electricity Units Token.
“Before entering the Electricity Units Token, customers must first enter the Key Change Tokens, starting with Key Change Token 1 and then Key Change Token 2,” part of the statement reads.
Escom has said failure to first enter the Key Change tokens will result in the rejection of the electricity token by the meter.
The corporation has further said once the Key Change tokens have been entered into the meter, all prepaid electricity units purchased prior to January 24 will not be accepted by the meter.
“They must, therefore, ensure that all prepaid tokens acquired or bought prior to January 24 are uploaded into their meters before entering the Key Change Tokens,” Mituka said.
Towards the end of last week, Escom switched off its billing system as part of the corporation’s ongoing project to migrate to a new system— Management Information System (MIS)—which seeks to enhance customer service delivery.
Speaking earlier, Escom Director of Distribution and Customer Services, Alfred Kaponda, said the MIS will replace business systems currently being used at Escom.
During the migration process, prepaid vending and postpaid billing services were completely switched off for a few days.
But some Escom customers have indicated that there are still unable to access the platforms and in the process, are failing to upload electricity units into their home meters.