When all was set to restore power supply to Mitekete area in Phalombe, some unpatriotic people moved in and vandalized the line that was constructed to replace a transformer.

On Wednesday, 8th March 2023, we woke up to the sad news that five spans of a single-phase aluminium conductor for the line we constructed had been vandalized in the area.

The members of the community alerted ESCOM security officers who rushed to the scene of the incident at 8:00am on Wednesday and eventually took the suspects— Jonathan Mwitha and Friday Julius—to Migowi Police Unit.

The 1,000-metre conductor meant to be connected to the new transformer was cut off at around 5:00am on Wednesday. The conductor is worth K1,128,000

The area has been without power supply for five months after its initial transformer was damaged by lightning.

The suspects are said to have admitted that they wanted to sell the conductor to a neighbouring country.

He further urged Management to continue absorbing temporary employees, as a way of curbing cases of vandalism.

A similar act of vandalism occurred on Friday, 3rd March 2023 when eight wooden poles were cut down and six spans of aluminum conductor and line accessories were stolen on a portion of our 11kV Bunda Overhead line at Dzalanyama Forest in Lilongwe.

We condemn strongly these acts of vandalism as they undermine our efforts to increase access to electricity and improve service delivery.