Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining, Bright Msaka on Friday had a difficult task of convincing visiting Indian investors to come and invest in the country when there are frequent power outages.
Msaka was frank to tell the Indian investors, who attended Malawi- India business meeting in Lilongwe, that power outages are the fundamental challenges that companies and individual electricity users in the country are struggling to cope with.
The minister, who started his statement by making a joke out of the power outage that had hit the conference room minutes earlier, pleaded with Indian investors to come and bail Malawians out of the crisis.
“Malawi is facing serious electricity challenges. As a matter of fact, it is a challenge that is affecting a lot of businesses in the country. It is, therefore, my plea that you come and invest in the energy sector if we are to achieve anything.
“Everything we are doing here cannot succeed if we will not have electricity,” Msaka said.
He then took time to explain to the investors that the government has revised the legal and regulation framework in the energy sector to allow independent power producers contribute to the national grid.
Msaka also said through the Ministry of Finance, the government has introduced incentives including duty waivers on electricity production equipment to facilitate power boost.
“Malawi is the safest country on the continent. Come to Malawi and invest in a peaceful environment. Come and invest in the energy sector,” Msaka said.
Companies and households in the country are experiencing power outages for long hours forcing some industries to scale-down production.
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