By Mike Van Kamande
Government says last weekend’s national blackouts were an epitome of disgrace as energy is one of the most important sectors of society hence the need to invest more in the sector.
Speaking at the Central Office of Information in Lilongwe this morning, Minister of energy Ibrahim Matola said for accountability and transparency, he held discussions with both ESCOM and EGENCO.
“Energy is the driver of the economy and without it there cannot be any meaningful development. Any energy sector should be vibrant and we can’t talk of water, education, health without energy,” he said.
He added that utility companies have been politicians’ cash cows forcing them to misprocure and bypass laid down procedures and the unbundling of ESCOM resulting into three separate companies looking at the same meagre 237 Megawatts of electricity being generated.
Minister of Information and Digitilization Gospel Kazako said electricity blackouts have reached unacceptable levels and people wanted answers hence the interface for accountability and transparency on what is actually happening with electricity blackouts.
“The unbundling of ESCOM has unleashed all these inefficiencies and persistent blackouts in the country. We need to do due diligence on the merits and demerits of the unbundling and find out what is actually happening in the energy sector,” Kazako said.
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