Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi Limited (ESCOM) is the

state-owned State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public owne ...

power transmission and distribution company in

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northe ...

. It is entirely in control of transmission and distribution of electric power in the country. ESCOM represents Malawi in the Southern African Power Pool. It should not be confused with its

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

n equivalent

Eskom Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. It was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) and was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). Eskom repre ...

Location

The headquarters of the company are located in ESCOM House, along Haile Selassie Avenue, in the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

Blantyre Blantyre () is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with an enumerated 800,264 inhabitants . It is sometimes referred to as the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, L ...

, the commercial and financial capital of Malawi. The ESCOM House sits directly across the street from ''Shifa Hospital''. The geographical coordinates of the company headquarters are:15°47'16.0"S, 35°00'38.0"E (Latitude:-15.787778; Longitude:35.010556).

Unbundling

When initially created in the 1980s, ESCOM monopolized the functions of (a) generation (b)transmission and (c) distribution of electric power throughout Malawi. In 2015, the

government of Malawi Politics of Malawi takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Malawi is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the g ...

began planning the unbundling of the company to allow private investors to enter the Malawian market. Escom is saddled with low tariffs and payment arrears. The company is heavily indebted and is loss-making. It lacks creditworthiness and is unable to attract private investment into the electricity sector, because power-purchase agreements with Escom are not financially viable. It is unable to upgrade infrastructure and increase generation capacity. In January 2017, Escom was split into two companies. Electricity Generation Company Malawi Limited (Egenco) is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and improvement of the power stations owned by the Malawian government. At that time, the power stations had generation capacity of 351 megawatts. Escom retained the role of bulk-purchaser, transmission and distribution to the consumer. Escom is also the sole seller to foreign customers.

Governance

Thomson Mpinganjira serves as the chairman of the ten-person board of directors. Mr. Kamkwamba Kumwenda is the Chief Executive Officer. He leads a team of nine senior Directors in running the day-to-day affairs of the company.

References

External links

ESCOM Official website
{{coord, 15, 47, 16, S, 35, 00, 38, E, display=title Electric power companies of Malawi Companies established in 1984 1984 establishments in Malawi Blantyre District

Location

Unbundling

Governance

See also

References

External links