MCC upbeat to transform power sector
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) said on Friday it is pleased with progress that Malawi has registered so far in implementing the $350.7 million energy grant which it says will see the country’s power sector revitalised.
This was said by corporation’s senior advisor to the MCC chief executive officer, Cassandra Butts, who was in the country for a three-day visit ending last Friday.
Butts, who advises on a range of strategic and policy-related issues and also chairs MCC’s investment management committee, said MCC is also happy with a strong partnership which it has created with the Malawi Government and expressed hope to achieve their objective in the next five years of the project’s implementation.
“I leave with confidence that Malawi is ready to take the challenge [in the energy sector] and there is potential progress of transforming the power sector,” said Butts during a media interaction she held alongside other MCC senior officials in Lilongwe on Friday.
She said during her visit, she also visited the leadership at the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) where she said discussions hinged on the need to instil financial viability on the part of the parastatal.
Butts noted that by reducing power outages and other technical losses in the country, MCC’s compact development seeks reduce energy costs to enterprises and households, improve agriculture productivity and create jobs in Malawi, among others.
She said the MCC’s power sector revitalisation project seeks to improve the availability and the quality of power supply by increasing the capacity and stability of the national electricity grid and bolstering the efficiency and sustainability of hydropower generation.
During the same media interaction, the Millennium Challenge Account-Malawi chief executive officer Susan Banda said the project’s infrastructure development activity focuses on the most urgent rehabilitation, upgrade and modernisation needs of the power sector.
“The activity will preserve and stabilise existing generation capacity, improve the capacity of the transmission and distribution network and increase the efficiency and sustainability of hydropower generation,” she said.n Govt offers hope to tobacco farmers.
