Blackouts, shortages, and unreliable access to electricity are a challenge for Malawi’s businesses. Malawian firms experience approximately 7.4 outages per month, with each outage lasting 3.6 hours. An independent evaluation of ESCOM revealed its showed an insufficient (and in some areas, deficient) corporate governance and management practices as principal causes of its weakened financial position and frequent power outages. We recommend that the ESCOM board consider providing a 10-year long-term technical assistance program to improve corporate governance and management practices at ESCOM. This is expected to address some, but not all, the challenges of electricity provision, effectively preventing 5% of Malawi’s generated electricity from being lost before it reaches the consumer.
The Costs and Benefits of Reforming the Power Sector for Business Friendliness in Malawi
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