Blackouts disrupt businesses

As outages batter homes and businesses, some Mchinji residents climb hills with telecom towers to recharge their phones, our Correspondent CHRISPINE MSISKA writes:

Persistent blackouts have become part of life in Malawi, shining a light on the country’s energy poverty.

A woman inspects her phone at a tower site in Mchinji. | Nation

For some Mchinji residents, keeping mobile phones charged has become a daily hike to the hilltops where telecommunication towers stand.

With homes and businesses going without electricity for up to two weeks, Mkanda and Chipumi residents turned to mobile phone network towers.

Dozens of phones were stuffed in guardrooms, getting charged from generator-powered facilities.

A man and a woman charge phones at a telecom tower site in Mchinji. | Nation

Some people left their gadgets behind as they attended to other errands, including income-generating activities.

The phones blinking back to life show the hardship caused by prolonged outages across the country.

Locals in Gullime, Kamwendo, Bua, Walilanji, Chipumi, Kapiri, Mikundi, Mkanda and Matutu trading centres say the blackouts are taking a toll on their daily lives and incomes.

For small businesses that depend on electricity, the inconvenience has far-reaching consequences.

Kamwendo-based businessperson Jane Salomy Maduka says her sausage and other foodstuffs perish due to unreliable power supply.

“Electricity woes make it tough to preserve perishable goods and this wipes out my income. I sometimes throw my sausages away. It stinks,” she says.

Livelihoods at stake

Welder Khama Patrick says customers are increasingly taking their work elsewhere because he cannot operate without electricity.

“If the situation continues, my business capital and earnings will disappear. How will I meet my daily needs?” he asks.

Barbers and other small-scale businesses who put electricity to productive use say prolonged outages are eating into their daily earnings too.

For some, recharging their phones has become part of the daily search for electricity.

Until last week, diesel-fuelled generators that power mobile network towers offered a temporary lifeline to electricity-starved communities .

Rain-fed faults

When asked about the blackouts, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) district manager Glen Sodala said a faulty transformer near Magawa Secondary School and other rain-related faults, including pole-top fires, affected electricity supply.

In its September 30 2026 update, Escom said an outstanding fault on the Kapiri-Katenje-Mkanda main line between Kamwendo and Mbingwa trading centres affected the two lines when closed.

The utility said its fault-tracing exercise was already underway.

Escom later said rainfall had disrupted the fault-tracing exercise and caused pole-top fires that burned some accessories on both lines.

According to the utility, fault teams restored power supply from Mwami Border Post to Kamwendo and Mbingwa, while customers beyond these areas remained without power as fault tracing continued.

For affected residents and businesses, the major concern was how long they would continue living without reliable electricity.

No access

As the search for electricity continues, the rows of mobile phones charging at network towers have become an unlikely symbol of life in a community waiting for the return of power.

Since Nation Online (www.mwnation.com) reported on residents in parts of Mchinji turning to communication towers to charge their phones amid prolonged electricity outages, the informal arrangement appears to have come to an end.

Security guards at some of the network towers told The Nation they have been instructed not to allow residents to charge their phones at the sites.

With the outages continuing and rains now falling in the areas, residents say the loss of the makeshift charging points has left them more worried.

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