Transport Minister speaks out on KIA power cut

Ministry of Transport and Public Works has said the power outage at Kamuzu International Airport was as a result of lack of fuel to power standby generators.

The Ministry’s spokesperson James Chakwera told Nation Publications Limited (NPL) that the airport has been facing persistent long hours of power outages which led to fuel shortage.

“We have no power since 8pm last night and we did not have fuel to power our automatic standby generators, that’s why we have this situation. We always have enough fuel but we are frequently facing power cuts hence using more fuel…but we are working to normalise the situation” said Chakwera.

He said their generators use up to 58 litres of diseal per hour. This means for the 12 hour black out that the airport has experienced since last night – they would have used about 696 litres of fuel.

Meanwhile Malawi Airlines flight which was expected to depart for Johhansburg at 08:10 this morning is yet to leave.

Checked in manually due to lack of power. Passengers have returned to the lounge waiting for hours to fuel a genset.

A passenger at KIA narrates the ordeal: “We are on the flight to Johannesburg via Blantyre. The flight has delayed with more than 2 hours, simply because no one took responsibility to fuel the generator timely.

“People will have missed meetings and connecting flights, only due to negligence. This is an embarrassment to Malawi as a country.”
Source: NPL