By Moses Nyirenda

Officials from government and ESCOM during the press briefing

Lilongwe, January 7, Mana: Minister of Information, Gospel Kazako has urged Malawians to remain patient as government strives to fulfill its campaign promises, including rolling out free electricity connection programme.

The minister made the remarks on Friday during the press briefing dubbed ‘Government Faces the Press’ which was held at Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe to clarify the issue of free electricity connection programme.

Free electricity connection is one of the promises the current administration made during its campaign.

Kazako said the current administration working to fulfill its promises and, therefore, asked people in the country to stay calm.

“As Tonse Government, we are here to address challenges which Malawians are facing. Currently, we are working very hard to fulfill the promises and we will do it,” Kazako said, promising that the free electricity connection programme is scheduled to commence this year.

“Electricity is one of our priority areas because there is nothing that can work without electricity.

The government is here now to recalibrate everything to reconstruct this country and that cannot be achieved without electricity as it is the energy that makes a lot of things work.

“Currently, we are working together with ESCOM to ensure that Malawians have easy access to electricity and this year, we will embark on the free electricity connection programme promised during the campaign period,” assured Kazako.

Commenting on the same, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) Acting Chief Executive Officer, Clement Kanyama, said together with the Ministry of Energy, they are in the process of identifying funds to finance the free electricity connection programme.

He said currently, they have secured a loan of about USD 150 million (about MK122.4 billion) through government from World Bank which will be used to expand electricity distribution network in the country.

“The loan will be used to expand our electricity distribution network and after the expansion, we are looking forward to be making 90, 000 new electricity connections every year,” Kanyama said.

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