CCODE electrifies Chitala Village

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
The family of Kwazizira Banda, 45, of Chitala Village in the area of Traditional Authority Khombedza in Salima used to spend K800 per month on kerosene only to light his house.

Both Banda and his wife are illiterate. But they realize the need to move with time, especially now when “people preach that we are in a global village”.

The advancement in technology has helped in connecting people across borders. While in the past you needed a long process to communicate to a relation in town or abroad you can now reach him or her just by dialling digits on your cell phone.

So despite living in one of the remotest parts of Salima, Banda is not backward technologically.

He bought his own gadget few years ago. But the cell phone is not an easy thing to maintain, especially to people living in the rural areas where electricity is just an illusion.

But for the love of technology and easy access to his relatives living in towns and cities Banda was spending another K900 on charging his phone battery for a month.

This is not easy-to-find money for a man who solely relies on small scale farming as his occupation.

“It was not easy to provide for my family while at the same time maintain my cell phone. It seemed to me that the gadget was consuming

more money than my wife,” Banda told Grain Wyson Malunga, Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Environment at the launch of “Barefoot Women Solar Engineers Village Electrification Project” at Chitala Village on Tuesday.

The village is about 20 km away from Salima, but Banda used to cycle or even board a bust to the town to charge his phone battery.

Despite energy being lifeblood of economic development of every nation, the access to electricity is still very low.

Statistics show that only 8 percent of the total population has an access to electrical energy. Of this, only one percent is in the rural areas. The situation presented above means that the majority of the country’s population has no access to any form of electricity.

Usually, the unserved population tends to rely on other alternative energy sources for their convenience and common among such sources include paraffin for lighting; firewood and charcoal for cooking.

Unfortunately though, these energy sources have contributed negatively to environmental degradation across the country.

Solar energy seen from this perspective of alternative sources offers a potentially attractive solution to the energy problems that Malawi is currently facing.

Currently, it is estimated that only about 0.02 percent of the population has access to solar electricity.

According to Malunga, this is far below the SADC overall average of 20 percent.

The minister emphasized that if Malawi is to achieve meaningful economic development, rural transformation, production enhancement and poverty reduction, there is urgent need to increase access to electricity by the rural populace.

“All the developed countries have reached where they are today because they, first of all, developed their energy sector,” said Malunga when he officially launched the project that Centre for Community Organization and Development (CCODE) initiated to improve energy services delivery in the rural communities.

He added, “For Malawi and other countries in the region, the full potential of the energy sector has remained far from being realized.

As stated in the Energy Policy Document, it is the intention of my ministry that a target of 10 percent access rate of electricity be partly achieved through rural electrification by the year 2010.”

Malunga disclosed that despite experiencing a tremendous increase in demand for energy, especially electricity, the level of production and supply at national level.

Therefore, promoting use of renewable energy sources such as solar electricity is one of the most convenient forms of alternative energy sources. To enhance affordability and adoption of solar energy, government has this year removed taxes on importation of all solar equipment.

According to CCODE executive director, Siku Nkhoma, the organization sent a ten-member team of semi-illiterate to Barefoot College in India where they read for solar installation and maintenance for six months.

CCODE Skills and Livelihoods Programme Manger, Boniface Kumwenda, said, with financial assistance from Trocaire, UNDP Global Environment Fund (GEF), Cara Malawi, and Barefoot College of India, his organization is targeting 135 families in Chitala and Chimonjo villages in Salima, 100 families in Kaphuka in Dedza while 81 families in Makunganya village in Zomba will benefit.

“So far, 60 families have benefited in Chitala village alone. The success of this pilot project will help us determine our next step to try to make this source of energy reach as many as households as possible,” said Kumwenda.

“The advantage is that we use semi-illiterate women in their localities to learn how to maintain in case of faults and other problems,” he said.

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