Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) executive director John Kapito has described the return of the six-hour electricity blackout for both domestic and industry customers as worrisome and counter-productive to the economy.
Cama’s concern follows an Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi’s (Escom) announcements of three-day six-hour load shedding due to insufficient power the company is getting from Electricity Generation Company of Malawi (Egenco).
Escom’s statement said the six-hour load shedding schedule was due to maintenance works Egenco is carrying out at its Tedzani III Power Station.
The first three-day six- hour load shedding was experienced last week from Saturday to Monday and Escom has also published another schedule from yesterday to Saturday.
In an interview, Kapito called for decisive action in ensuring diversification of power sources than overreliance on hydropower.
“Both Escom and Egenco have been giving us false hopes that they had improved generation and supply of power.
“We are surprised that we are getting back to where we were when we had prolonged blackouts,” he said.
Escom public relations manager Innocent Chitosi yesterday said the institution is working to manage the available power as generated by Egenco; hence, load shedding.
The power rationing is forcing some businesses to switch to stand-by generators which are costly to businesses.
(Source: The Nation Malawi, Friday, 19 July 2019)