Malawians celebrate Easter in darkness

Malawians celebrate Easter in darkness. Malawians are celebrating Easter in total darkness as the sole state controlled power utility has earmarked massive load shedding programme during the holidays.

On Friday, there was total blackout in the Capital City, Lilongwe almost the whole day so too on Saturday when most parts of the capital experienced the worst black outs in months.

Escom deputy publicist George Mituka said the blackouts were done to enable the power utility carry out massive maintenance works on its power generating plants.

“We notified our customers in advance that we would be carrying out the maintenance works this time because we know most industries and companies are shut and demand for electricity is low,” said Mituka.

He said the loadshedding is across the country and would end on Monday midnight.

Apart from the elecyricity woes, Malawians who borrow from banks are expwriencing the Easter extremely tough as most banks have published names of defaulting debtors.

Bank interest rates have of late shot up from just above 20 percent to 40 percent due to the harsh economic climate the cointry is going through.

Newspapers have been publishing names of property they intend to sell due to failure to service loans by their ciients.