By Dean Chisambo
Deputy Secretary to the Office of President and Cabinet, Janet Banda, who is also Head of Presidential Delivery Unit (PDU), has called for coordination in the energy sector to increase access to power generation for the general public in the country.
Banda made the remarks during the two-day pre-lab meeting, which focused on Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) in the energy sector, on Wednesday in Lilongwe.
She said that the previous energy lab, which was conducted a few months ago, discussed various energy sources that Malawi can utilize on-grid and off-grid, and what is available in the country.
She disclosed that through this energy pre-lab, technicians are expected to look at issues of coordination and integrated resource planning, which the country needs to implement and see how it can work.
Banda said:”It is appropriate for a country when you are talking about integrated resource planning, we are looking at generation, transmission, and distribution.
“Those are the issues that will be discussed in this pre-lab to identify efficiency and inefficiencies in the entire value chain of energy production in the country.”
She also mentioned that from the previous lab, they were able to gain a lot of insights into agro-industrialization through empowering small and medium enterprises, especially those in the field of agriculture, and how they can access electricity by introducing new electricity tariffs special for those in production and manufacturing that is in small scale to revamp the economy through small and medium enterprises.
Banda lamented that by the end of the lab, they are hoping that technicians will be able to identify challenges that are there in the energy sector, especially regarding electricity generation, transmission, and distribution.
She said:”We are also expecting them to discuss the issues affecting coordination among the key stakeholders in the energy sector; we are hoping those issues once identified can now be brought to the main lab for problem-solving.”
In his remarks, Director of Electricity in the Ministry of Energy, Million Mafuta, said that resource mobilization has been a challenge in terms of how many players can contribute to the power generation basket; hence, the country is relying on private partners, which is a good thing, but there is also a need to put up some mechanisms in terms of financing in order for the country to have its own power generation strategic project.
He said there is also a need to capacitate Electricity Generation company (EGENCO) to be able to develop power generation plants for the country.
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