Escomites

It is a Friday and once again we find ourselves reading on Richie Online. It has been an eventful week with the whole issue of blackouts taking the centre stage.

Without wasting time with unnecessary pleasantries and introductions, I should point out that this article is about the Escomites and the drama surrounding their blackout supply operations. The social media is awash with complaints about 36 hour blackouts. Ironically we find ourselves using electronic gadgets to complain about electricity in the same way we use the internet to complain about the poor internet. Truth of the matter is that the service provision of Escom is way below the acceptable levels. Someone once calculated that at the current blackout rate, it is estimated that we get electricity for about five months out of the twelve in a year. Some might think that it is an exaggeration but looking at the rampant power cuts, that duration (or something lower) might be equivalent if not close to what a majority are getting.

There are a lot of questions as to why we continue to suffer with blackouts despite the money that escomites make in profits from power generation. One can indeed not help but wonder why we keep on having the same excuses of "anyani ozimitsa magetsi" and low water levels year in year out as if those are issues that cannot be dressed. To an extent, it makes me think that this is more of a political will issue than it is about anything else. In other words, if people were willing to institute that much needed change, issues of blackouts would have been an issue of the past.

Historians like to tell a tale of how Nkula hydro electric power station was commissioned a long time ago when the nation's population was a mere quarter of what it currently is in the present day. The increase in the population entails an increase in the demand for electricity and thus the need for the expansion of the generation capacity to stay up to speed with the exponentially increasing demand. Obvious as that may sound, there has hardly been any action done along those lines. We have not taken any serious initiatives in increasing our generation capacity and one would wonder whether that is the fault of some ESCOM CEO or someone else higher up.

Talking of the issue of the relationship between electricity supply and politics, we often find ourselves comparing between the Orange and Blue monarchies, preferring the former as it is thought as one that had the political muscle that pulled strings to make power available 20 hours a day and 6 days a week (za enawo sitikamba). I have, for a long time been in doubts as to whether it was really the woman's tricks that sorted out the power but some guys in an opposite corner to some auditorium gave me the answer. According to them, the Orange president had some project going on in which some of the nation's power supply was coming from Tanzania, relieving our old machines, thus making them function at an optimum. The continuity issues we have in our (not unlike other African nations) country meant that the project was discontinued and the Tanganyikas pulled out their cables from Kameme or wherever on earth they connected them. I am assuming that this is something to go by, otherwise I haven't been able to find any plausible explanation for the significant difference.

Many of us have been throwing heavy barrages of criticisms at the management of the power supplier and the energy ministry (and its boss and his boss) for failing to do something. Despite all these blaming fingers, little or no solutions have been offered or enacted. Interestingly there came the move to split ESCOM and come up with ENGENCO, the logic of which some of us are yet to understand as we are yet to be bailed out from the problems the split was supposed to solve.

Rather interestingly, amidst the noises of cry babies came a voice with a solution. Major Prophet Shepherd Bushiri of the Enlightened Christian Gathering stood on a pulpit somewhere in the rainbow nation and told the world that he could solve our electricity woes within a record 48 hours. Boldness. While I am left with the question of how that can be achieved, I must say that I would have loved it if people had let him try. It would have been great to see him succeed and gain more philanthropic (and maybe political and prophetic) points but on the other hand it would have been fun watching him fail (nane ndine m'Malawi so don't judge me). Of course that offer came amidst the spread of a clip in which the prophet was claiming that he had previously offered our electricity generator some financial help, a claim which the PRO for the company vehemently denied. Ndi pa Malawi pano. You can't know who is lying and who is not. Tidzamva pa tsiku lomaliza lipenga likadzalira if there will be time for such.

Of course there were also those 12 people who took it to the streets and peacefully demonstrated against the blackout supply corporation's poor services. I am not sure if their demonstrations were just aimed at making a difference or just showing their anger. Truth of the matter is that whether we demonstrate naked or not, we may never have the power we need because the people who are holding the keys to the solutions of these problems are not willing to do it. Instead they are busy providing funding to city sweepers, tribal groups and political parties as part of the appeasement policy. They are busy getting hefty bonuses and buying poshy cars from the profits of the overpriced electricity as opposed to embarking on a venture that would see you and me in the dream "power all day everyday" setting.

I am told that it took some people's court action for escomites to add the word "towards" to their "power all day everyday" slogan. We should probably take some action to force them to change because from what is happening, we don't seem to be going towards power all day everyday. Talking of what happened yesterday, I am not convinced that firing the CEO of the parastatal and hiring another one would miraculously change the state of power provision in the country. I might be wrong but surprise visits and firings hardly do anything in this country.

Solution?

Gulani power bank ya solar, gas cooker (or mbaula) and any other alternatives to escomite power that you can think of. It will save you the stress.

Have a lovely weekend.