In 2004, nationwide power disruption hit Capital Hotel in Lilongwe when presidents of Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania were launching Mtwala Corridor. Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) quickly blamed lightning strikes, but Davis Katsonga, then Minister of Energy, saw saboteurs in the divided ruling party choreographing the power crisis that has been getting worse ever since.
“We are suspecting this is sabotage”, he stated in a highly quoted outburst, the first of its kind in the country where even monkeys and snakes in the jungles of Nkhotakota Game Reserve have had a fair share of blame for persistent blackouts. Two weeks earlier, a newly elected president Bingu wa Mutharika suffered similar humiliation at Mzuzu University (Mzuni) graduation. “Anyone who gets involved in the sabotage will be dealt with, one found. You are not embarrassing the president but the nation, because this scares away investors”, he rapped his perceived enemies in the United Democratic Front (UDF), the party which sponsored his rise to presidency. But the irksome blackouts did not peter out with the sacking of Katsonga or Bingu’s death on April 5 2012.
Endless power woes
They no longer “embarrass the president” but require tough measures because they are paralyzing the economy everyone vying for the presidency promises to boost. Since 2014, power rationing has been growing in frequency and length to the point that some Malawians are convinced it is time to “get used to blackouts”, a phrase fashioned by former Minister of Energy and Mining Grain Malunga. Power disruptions have spared no parts of the country, bringing business to a standstill in courts, Parliament, shops, factories, classrooms and the informal sector.
Now an opinion is gaining sway that it will take political will of cataclysmic proportions to end the power problems haunting the country. However, every power blackout brings into question the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) manifesto which promises “more advanced technologies” to end haunting blackouts. “More advanced technologies will be introduced for exploitation of commercial hydropower, wind and solar power owned by government or private sector for rural electricfication through, interalia, the use of coal, geothermal, solar and wind energy.
Such is the mix-up in the country’s energy policy that the only addition to the ailing grid and energy mix are diesel powered generators hired from South Africa, which hints at the country’s desperate switch to fossil fuels being discarded globally. The DPP administration has also come under fire for obtaining a loan from China to construct a 300-megawatt coal-fired plant at Kammwamba in Neno Hills. In an interview, Community Energy Malawi country director Edgar Bayani said: “In the country we have huge untapped potential in renewable sources, such as hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power as well as agricultural and municipal wastes. Decentralised energy systems which are also mentioned in the newly-approved Malawi National Energy Policy and the Malawi Renewable Energy Strategy all outline options that can be pursued. It is just a matter of putting our house in order and rise above selfish interests.”
However, no single party campaigning for the presidency seems determined to oust the silent energy crisis eroding jobs and productivity. This slows the dream to turn the country from importing and consuming to an producing and exporting economy – much to the bewilderment of Malawians grappling with massive unemployment rates estimated at about six percent by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
As Malawians count down to 2019 Tripartite elections, commentators feel time has come for politicians to cut blame games and start offering insights into how they intend to end the dark chapter that has left the country trapped in an economic gridlock for decades. President Peter Mutharika reckons the country is paying a price for laxity, saying for the past five decades “the country did not invest much in the energy sector.” The country invested as if the project would remain the same, he says. This discredits former regimes, principally the 31-year reign of the opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) whose leader Lazarus Chakwera fought back by accusing Mutharika of being “clueless and insensitive to untold suffering” blackouts inflicts on the nation.
“I personally can see that the country in which we are living has literally been plunged into darkness by the incessant blackouts as a result of Escom’s load-shedding and, figuratively, into darkness of hopelessness, as there seems to be no end to the blackouts and other economic problems plaguing this nation. However, apportioning blame has not healed the power problems plaguing the economy battered by corruption, aid freezes and rapid population growth.
No end in sight
The challenge to end power blackouts remains immense and costly for duty-bearers. It may as well be everything to voters in the game of numbers come May 21 next year. Mutharika, who recently admitted for the first time that the power puzzle has hit the fragile economy hard, spelled out a litany of projects to eliminate the setback. The only one which has come to fruition is the hiring of massive generators, which are haunted by theft of diesel.
During his whirlwind rallies, Vice-President Saulos Chilima lifted a lid in the vanishing of 4.2 million liters of fuel, a scandal Escom confirmed. “We don’t want diesel or generators, but electricity. We need clean energy for all”, said Michael Usi, the leader of Odya Zake Alibe Mlandu movement which is in an alliance with Chilima’s United Transformation Movement. Witty Usi argued that it is shocking the country was turning to fossil fuel at a time the global focus is shifting away from coal and petroleum to reduce pollution, global warming and climate change.
In September 2015, Mutharika was among world leaders who adopted sustainable Development Goals to wipe out poverty by 2030. The seventh target (SDG7) of the global goals requires countries to ensure everyone has access to sustainable and affordable energy, including clean cooking fuel and technologies.
Presently, Escom supplies power to just about 1.7 million Malawians, a tenth of the population. This is a story of deepening inequality, with nine in every 10 Malawians bearing the brunt of living without access to electricity 54 years after independence. Among the excluded majority, Malawians in rural areas, which constitute 81 percent of the population, are disproportionately deprived of the benefits of being connected to the grid.
At a busy market near pioneer John Chilembwe’s Providence Industrial Mission, rural Malawians, especially women and children, queue all day at a maize mill to produce flour. They count themselves lucky the the rural trading centre named after the national hero’s church is connected to the grid, but wish electricity was reliable and affordable for all. “We have been struggling like this for almost two years. We don’t know what out leaders think about the blackouts. They need to do something about it. The only time our elected duty bearers queue with us is on the polling day. Before that, they make a lot of promises. After winning, they disappear”, says Alica Mwale, a mother of two.
The scene replicates itself in townships where incomes of the youth who rely on electricity to run their barbershops, saloons, electronics repairing and other small business are repeatedly disrupted by power. They want a respite from politicians campaigning for their votes. “It is clear the grid is overwhelmed. When power vanishes, we cannot make more, feed our families and pay market fees. Simple solutions, making solar accessories affordable by removing all taxes, can help some of us stop relying on Escom. In doing so it will save some power for other areas which are grappling with blackouts,” says Thom, a hair artist in Machinjiri, Blantyre.
The people crying for reliable electricity face tough times as Escom wants a higher tariff hike than the 31 percent approved by Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera). The electricity supplier, which has borrowed K30 billion from a commercial bank after government turned down its pleas for a bailout, says it cannot continue providing power at a loss. The stand is backed by the American Ambassador Virginia Palmer, whose government bankrolled the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) compact to prop up the grid to take more power from within and abroad. Palmer, together with other envoys, recently authored an op-ed, stating that Malawi’s electricity sector is in crisis in which the lack of reliable power discourages foreign and local investment in manufacturing and commercial agriculture. “It means Malawian factories sit idle, their workers dismissed or on reduced salaries while their customers in Malawi and beyond buy cement or consumer goods from other countries, “ they wrote. According to the diplomats, blackouts and inadequate access to electricity are costing the country up to seven percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a year – “more than any other country in Africa”. They reckoned: “This crisis arises in part because the power utility is burdened with heavy debt resulting from improper procurements, government arrears and, most importantly, the fact that it is selling electricity for less than it costs to produce it. If the electricity tariff is not raised, not even interconnection with Mozambique and Zambia will help. Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) simply will not be able to afford the power it so desperately needs. Today, Escom customers pay one of the lowest average electricity tariffs in sub-Saharan Africa at K58 per kilowatt hour (kWh), requiring to find over K50 billion a year to subsidise artificially low tariffs.”
Weighing the costs
To political science Professor Dan Banik, from the University of Oslo, energy gaps represent a burning issue for Malawians in the push for SDGs. He unpacked the big question about electricity tariffs: “On one hand, we have people who want Escom to maintain prices so that electricity remains affordable for all. On the other hand, Escom says it cannot continue supplying electricity at a loss. Surely, the company needs to get back its money to offer quality services and expand the grid. So how do we best balance the conflicting interests of the two sides?”
During his recent return to Chancellor College where he lectures masters students, Banik found himself working in a dark lecture room illumined by backlights of mobile phones banned from his class. The firefly scene brings to mind the ingenuity of optician Dr Amos Nyaka who heroically operated on an eye patient using a glow of smartphone when lights in a theatre at Kamuzu Central Hospital went out in the middle of the procedure.
For voters, the looming tripartite elections are really a search for leaders with answers to burning issues making Malawians in a global race for development. They ask: will the winning party adequately invest in the neglected power sector?
(Source: The Nation Malawi, Wednesday 24 October 2018)