Chilenga says steady progress towards achieving 50% electricity access

Machinga, May 13, Mana: Chairperson for Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources, Werani Chilenga, says the country is making tremendous progress towards achieving 50 percent electricity access for its population by 2030.

Chilenga made the sentiments in Machinga when the committee appreciated Malawi Rural Electrification Programme (MAREP) works at Lazalo in the area of Traditional Authority (TA) Chamba in the district.

He said, with government’s initiatives such as MAREP to connect most people to the electricity grid, the committee is convinced that by 2030, the 50 percent access to electricity will be achieved.

“The current government and its leadership has taken a bold stand in making sure that the country’s population has access to electricity. The country is doing everything possible to ensure that almost every Malawian has access to electricity.

“This is evident in how MAREP 9 is being implemented in different areas in the country, which aims at bringing electricity to remote and underserved communities. The government has also been working on expanding the national grid and promoting renewable energy sources like solar power. This is very encouraging,” said Chilenga.

Reacting to Lazalo MAREP site, Chilenga said the committee was impressed with the works and advised other contractors doing the similar work to emulate the example.

“What I have seen is very commendable. The contractor has done it 100 percent perfect. We have visited some places in Chikwawa District but what we have seen here is outstanding. Communities here are even impressed with the good works the contractor is doing,” said Chilenga.

Chilenga, therefore, called upon communities to take care of the infrastructure and guard against vandalism.

He said the recent sitting of parliament passed a bill which, if the President assents to it, will guard against all sorts of vandalism, noting that in the current law there is no fine to any person found guilty of any vandalism crime.

“The new law will allow those committing such crimes to serve jail sentence without giving them an option of paying fine. This is a great milestone in as far as curbing this malpractice is concerned,” he said.

Austin Theu, Chief Energy Officer in the Ministry of Energy said MAREP 9 is targeting 430 sites across the country, pointing out that in Machinga alone, there were 11 sites under construction.

“We expect that once completed, at least over 200,000 households will be connected and there will be a boom in economic activities as you know that electricity is the heart of economic development of any country. As of now, access to electricity is at 26 percent,” Theu said.

Group Village Head Njete, whose area is going to benefit from the Lazalo electricity infrastructure, said his subjects will be economically empowered apart from accessing milling services within their locality.

“We travel long distance to pound our maize as the area hardly has access to electricity. We are happy that we are now better off. Youths in my area will be economically empowered as they will start different businesses like barber shops and welding,” said GVH Njete.

Ministry of Energy has been implementing MAREP with an aim of increasing access to electricity for the rural and peri-urban areas in an attempt to transform rural economies and reduce poverty amongst the rural masses and contribute to government’s agenda of poverty reduction.