{"id":70446,"date":"2018-10-17T10:20:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T08:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=70446"},"modified":"2018-10-17T10:20:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T08:20:27","slug":"escom-revises-tariff-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/10\/17\/escom-revises-tariff-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"Escom revises tariff structure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <strong>William Kumwembe: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Allexon-Chiwaya.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-70207\" src=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Allexon-Chiwaya-300x294.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"294\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Allexon-Chiwaya-300x294.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Allexon-Chiwaya-32x32.jpg 32w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Allexon-Chiwaya.jpg 373w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has revised its base tariff structure following a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.times.mw\/electricity-tariff-32-up\/\">31.8 percent<\/a> electricity tariff adjustment nod by Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera).<\/p>\n<p>Escom applied for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.times.mw\/proposed-60-escom-power-hike-will-hurt-economy\/\">60 percent<\/a> electricity tariff adjustment.<\/p>\n<p>Escom has since introduced a life-line tariff in the new structure to cater for low income households to access electricity at lower rates, while reducing the subsidy for other sections of the consumers.<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, the new tariff plan stipulates that consumers from other categories would be buying the first 50 electricity units at a base rate of K48.80 per unit.<\/p>\n<p>Any additional unit after the first 50 units mark would see the domestic prepaid consumer buying electricity at K67.25 per unit, representing 38 percent difference.<\/p>\n<p>In a presentation to journalists, Escom Senior Commercial and Customer Service Manager, Wiseman Kabwazi, said the changes were part of the Escom proposal approved by Mera.<\/p>\n<p>He said Escom has effected minimum increase to small non-domestic power users since existing tariff were already on the higher side.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, domestic electricity sales account for 38 percent of energy sales and 28 percent of revenue.<\/p>\n<p>The domestic tariff is at 33 percent below average tariff.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cDomestic customers [have been] massively subsidised by non-domestic customers. This is un-sustainable for non-domestic customers. The domestic average tariff will still be lower than average tariff and will still benefit from cross subsidies from non-domestic customers,\u201d<\/em> Kabwazi said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Escom Chief Executive Officer, Allexon Chiwaya, said last week the change is reflecting market trends.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThis would benefit the consumer as the tariffs would entail lower costs for customers with low consumption,\u201d<\/em> Chiwaya said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He said Escom\u2019s target is to reach out to over 30 percent of the population with electricity.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, only 1.2 percent of the population has access to electricity.<\/p>\n<p>Escom has been sailing through troubled waters in recent months due to, among other things, bad procurement decisions which resulted in the firm buying equipment it does not currently need.<\/p>\n<p>Mid this year, Escom asked the Treasury for a K50 billion bailout package to keep its operations afloat, a development the fiscal authorities turned down.<\/p>\n<p>This left Escom with no option but to turn to the money market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By William Kumwembe: Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has revised its base tariff structure following a 31.8 percent electricity tariff adjustment nod by Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera). Escom applied for a 60 percent electricity tariff adjustment. Escom has since introduced a life-line tariff in the new structure to cater for low income households [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":70453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70454,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70446\/revisions\/70454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}