President Lazarus Chakwera says his administration is committed to achieve the target of commissioning 1000 Megawatts to the national power grid in the next four years.
He made the commitment on Tuesday when he inaugurated the 19 Megawatts Tedzani IV Hydropower Plant at Tedzani Power Station in Blantyre.
The power plant which has been constructed with a US$52 million (about K41.6 billion) grant from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is expected to increase the Tedzani Power Station’s generation capacity to 121 Megawatts from 102 Megawatts.
President Chakwera said if the country does not have enough electricity it might lose out on numerous opportunities including mineral deposits, agriculture and education which have the potential to develop the country.
“I expect that the officials at the Ministry of Energy will not allow us to lose this momentum or miss our targets,” he said.
Chakwera further called upon institutions and companies that are bringing developments in various communities to establish structures like schools to ensure that communities benefit fully from such developments.
Minister of Energy, Newton Kambala said the country’s power generation was expected to increase from 441 to 521 megawatts by the end of the year.
Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) has a total installed generation capacity of 441.55MW connected to the national grid.
Additional reporting by Malawi News Agency
