Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola says he will present a list of names of people who have been drawing fuel illegally from Electricity Supply Commission of Malawi (Escom), saying the development has affected the utility company’s operations.

Responding to questions on his ministry in Parliament on Thursday, Matola said Escom and Electricity Generating Company (Egenco) were underperforming largely because people, including some members of Parliament (MPs), have been siphoning fuel and other resources from the parastatal.

Matola: We will track you down

He alleged that some people were drawing as much as 400 litres of fuel every day, wondering how one could use such an amount of fuel in just a day.

Said Matola amid cheers from the government benches: “We know some of you people are here…we will track you down… I have the list and it includes some of the people in this House. Madam Speaker, allow me one day to present this list in this House.”

But Thyolo South MP Ben Phiri picked on Matola, saying he had no moral ground to talk about looting at Escom because he was minister responsible for energy during the Joyce Banda administration when the Escom head office in Blantyre was gutted by fire under suspicious circumstances.

But Matola told the House that the fire was fully investigated and a report was produced, which MPs were free to read and see if at all he did any wrong.

When Speaker of Parliament Catherine Gotani-Hara asked Matola when he would be ready to present the list to the House, the minister said next Monday.

This is the second time the Escom fuel scandal is coming into the limelight. In July 2020, our sister newspaper The Nation published a story which also highlighted that there were individuals who were drawing fuel from Escom.

The long list of individuals and institutions that allegedly drew fuel from Escom illegally, according to the 2020 story, included senior officials from Mulhako wa Alhomwe, businesspeople and some politicians from the immediate-past governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The list also had institutions such as Malawi Defence Force and Malawi Police Service as well as individuals from these institutions that were also alleged to have been drawing Escom fuel.

The free-for-all allocation of fuel, dating to 2018, followed another scandal in 2019 where the power supply company lost to theft 4.2 million litres of diesel for generators as well as misprocurement of goods worth K5 billion.

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