Escom meets Mozambican authorities over power tapping

A team of financially-troubled Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom)  officials is in South Africa for a meeting with their counterparts in Mozambique for an interconnection agreement, just days after Malawi  started tapping power from Zambia.

Escom chief executive officer AlexiousChiwaya said the Escom officials want to finalise the deal ahead of the power interconnection between the two countries.

“However, the interconnection can only be done after two years and this will drastically reduce the current persistent load shedding,” he said.

Chiwaya said the current 20 megawatts power from Zambia will in a few weeks’ time be upgraded to 50 megawatts, saying this will be a leap in the distribution of power in the country.

The Escom CEO said Malawi is working with both Zambia and Mozambique on the efficient distribution of power.

Chiwaya also said the interconnection power agreement with Zambia and Mozambique is done under the private partnership agreement, saying locally, more PPEs are coming out to provide power on the grid of Egenco.

President Peter Mutharika said increased power in the country would attract more investors who will likely create more jobs.