Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has expressed uncertainty over the time it will take them to rectify prolonged blackouts which the country is experiencing.
Malawi started experiencing blackouts last week. According to the power supplier, there was a fault at Kapichira Power Plant where three of four machines were out due to an electrical fault which saw the station producing only 32.4 Megawatts out of the possible 129.6 Megawatts.
On Tuesday, Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) said it had managed to bring back two of the three machines online.
“This means we now have 3 machines online with a total of 97.2 Megawatts available capacity at Kapichira. Work on the remaining one machine is continuing,” the company said.
However, the electricity situation has not improved as Malawians are still facing more than five hours of blackouts a day.
Escom spokesperson Innocent Chitosi said that they cannot be precise on when the blackouts will end. However, he assured Malawians that EGENCO was making efforts to solve the problem.
Over the past 9 months the power situation in Malawi improved but the situation changed last week when the prolonged blackouts returned. As usual, the sad development is having a negative impact on business.
The country’s electricity woes reached unprecedented levels two years ago when there were blackouts lasting 24 hours.
