BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
Police in Limbe yesterday arrested a local electrician, Steven Nkulichi, on suspicion that he was tapping and supplying electricity to people around Makhetha Township in Blantyre without authority from Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM).
Earlier in the week, The Sunday Times got a tip from the public insinuating that Nkulichi was running parallel ESCOM structures in the township where customers in need of short-cuts would acquire quick and affordable electricity services.
After illegally connecting the desperate power consumers, the suspect was then collecting K1,000 as monthly payments from each client.
“You will not need to go and pay your bills at ESCOM if I connect you. You will only be required to pay me K1,000 every month,” Nkulichi told The Sunday Times reporters who posed as potential clients on Friday.
And during interrogation yesterday, Nkulichi told the police who were accompanied by ESCOM’s Controller of Security Services, Precious Mpekansambo, he has so far supplied power to five houses.
But our informants disputed saying “he has been doing this business for quite long. People who have benefitted from his malpractice are more than what he is revealing.”
Nkulichi is yet to be charged.
ESCOM public relations officer, Kitty Chingota, could not value the amount of money the company has lost due to the malpractice because “we will have to investigate the damage”.
She, however, warned consumers against acquiring electricity services from non-ESCOM workers saying the practice is dangerous to the individual (beneficiary), society, the company and the nation as a whole.
“Illegal connections are very dangerous. They can cause serious damage and that’s the more reason people should not solicit services from unknown people,” said Chingota.
Meanwhile ESCOM has commended The Sunday Times for assisting in tracking down the culprit and appealed to the public to tip the power provider on people involved in the malpractice.
Nkulichi, 51, hails from Anderson Jumbe Village, T/A Likoswe in Chiradzulu district.
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