By Deogratias Mmana:
The Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) has criticised the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) over poor service delivery.
Mera says it has received many complaints from customers against Escom for failing to implement its mission of supplying electricity to the nation for sustainable development.
In a letter dated January 13, 2025, Mera Chief Executive Officer Henry Kachaje addresses his counterpart at Escom.
“We have received complaints from various customers concerning the bad exercise in your service delivery. Generally, customers are kept waiting for long periods of time before being attended to, when using your platforms to report faults and at times customers are completely ignored,” reads Kachaje’s letter.
“It has also been reported that your call centre staff are rude to customers and that your faults staff are demanding money to rectify faults or connect electricity to new customers,” Kachaje writes.
The letter is not Mera’s first to have gone to Escom over similar complaints.
Kachaje reminds Escom CEO about its September 30, 2024 letter on unresolved and outstanding complaints from various customers against Escom service provision.
Mera condemns Escom for failing to comply with a directive to provide a focal person at a senior level who would be responsible for facilitating electricity consumers’ complaints.
Escom also defied Mera by not providing investigation reports on various outstanding consumer related complaints in the southern region after being directed to do so in April 2024.
“Your conduct demonstrates negligence, lack of commitment and bad customer service to electricity consumers which is against your own customer service charter, provisions of the electricity by-laws and the agreed key performance indicators,” adds the letter.
Kachaje’s letter concludes as follows:
“It is against this background that the Authority is seriously warning Escom over the poor customer service experienced by the consumer.
“It should also be noted that non-compliance to the Authority‘s directives and requests is being disrespectful, and the Authority will not hesitate to take further action against Escom should the non-compliance continue.”
Copies of the letter were sent to the Secretary for the Ministry of Energy and Comptroller of Statutory Corporations.
We visited the Escom Game office in Lilongwe yesterday and found customers who raised similar issues as highlighted in the letter.
One of them said: “I applied for an electricity connection in 2020 and when the officials visited the house they told me that it was out of the radius of the transformer in the area.
“Four years later, the same Escom has connected new houses that have been built beyond my house. So, if they say my house is out of the radius, what about those houses beyond my house and using the same transformer?”
The customer said when he went back to report to Escom about the new connections in Area 38 beyond his house, he was told to resubmit his 2020 application.
“I resubmitted the application in November last year but until now, Escom has not acted on it. Why is Escom making life hard for people who want electricity? Why is Escom reducing us to beggars?”
Malawi has a very low electricity use rate with only around 14 percent of the population having access to electricity, making it one of the least electrified countries in the Southern Africa Development Community region, according to the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Escom spokesperson Peter Kanjere said Escom regrets the issues raised and added that it has taken some steps to address the issues.
“We regret the issues raised such as our call centre’s inappropriate handling of customers seeking fault clearance, delayed fault clearance and new electricity connections, reports of bribery and corruption involving some of our staff members,” Kanjere said.
He added: “We have responded to Mera’s letter expressing our regret over the issues raised while detailing steps to address them and measures to ensure their implementation.”
Kanjere said Escom has also explained to Mera some of the challenges it faces especially in the rainy season when it has numerous faults and the efforts it applies to clear them and that the scarcity of fuel also affects its operations.
On bribery and corruption, Kanjere said: “We are investigating reports of bribery and corruption and the perpetrators will be dealt with accordingly.”
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