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| Business |
| Escom leaves thousands in the dark |
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by
Taonga Sabola, 05 July 2006
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05:24:33
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There was panic at the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) offices across the country as thousands of customers scrambled to settle their outstanding bills to avoid staying in the dark and missing the ongoing World Cup soccer games taking place in Germany.
Escom on Monday went on a massive disconnection campaign in an attempt to recover about K3 billion the utility producer is owed by its customers.
Escom pay-points in Blantyre and Lilongwe were full of disgruntled customers who had either been disconnected or queued to clear their backlogs.
Escom spokesperson Chikondi Chimala said the campaign was aimed at instilling an attitude change among the customers towards settling bills.
“It’s not that we want to punish our customers by denying them the opportunity to watch the critical stages of the World Cup. It’s just a coincidence that the campaign is coming at a time when the world soccer show has reached a climax.
“We are happy that a lot of people are coming to clear the bills and that’s what we would like to see happening all the time. As Escom, we are not interested in leaving our customers in the dark but sometimes circumstances force us to do it,” said chimala.
Some of the customers interviewed at the pay-points on Monday said Escom was partly to blame for their delay in settling the bills as it does not give them the bills in time.
“It’s now four months when I last received a bill from Escom. So most of the times I am at a loss as to how much I am supposed to pay to the utility company,” said Lewis Chikhadzula, a Zingwangwa resident.
But Chimala argued that good citizens are supposed to make efforts to clear their debts whether or not they get bills.
The amount of money individuals, organisations and government departments owe Escom has been on the increase in recent years.
Chimala said this has been the case as most customers usually do not pay the full amounts of their outstanding bills which leads to huge sums of money piling over a long period of time. |
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