By IOMMIE CHIWALO
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-For most Malawians, ‘Single Buyer licence’ sounds like boardroom jargon. But in kitchens, barbershops and cold rooms across Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu, the fight over who holds it is being read as a question about blackouts, monthly bills, and who can be trusted to fix a broken grid.
At the centre is a standoff. The Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority, ESCOM and Power Market Limited, PML, are pushing ahead to revive PML as the Single Buyer.
However the Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives, CDEDI, says stop.
Responding to the current stand of regulatory authorities, CDEDI Executive Director Sylvester Namiwa says reviving PML is unnecessary reform.
“Position remains that the Single Buyer Licence should remain with ESCOM, since it compliments the transition, distribution and System Market Operator therefore reviving PML is unnecessary reform,” Namiwa says while adding that the reforms we need should be towards power generation not systems and operations.
That view lands hard in a country tired of load shedding.
CDEDI filed its objection with MERA on 29th May 2026 fearing that the transfer will raise electricity tariffs as it was coming at wrong time when Malawians were frustrated with load shedding due to obsolete ESCOM distribution infrastructure and that it runs counter to government austerity by creating a complete third set of executives alongside ESCOM and EGENCO.
“For many consumers, those are not abstract arguments. They remember the last tariff review. They remember food spoiling during a night without power, students studying by candlelight, and welders losing a day’s pay. To them, another institution looks like another mouth to feed,” expressed concerns Namiwa.
But in its 24 paged response, the regulators tell a different story.
Their joint response roots the move in the $351 million Millennium Challenge Corporation Power Sector Reform Project of 2013–2018 that led to unbundling of ESCOM in 2017 and created five players: Generation, Transmission, Distribution, System Market Operator, and Single Buyer.
Also in referencing to the 2016 Electricity Act, ESCOM now holds Transmission, Distribution and SMO licences. PML is slated to take the Single Buyer role, buying power from EGENCO and IPPs and selling it to ESCOM for distribution.
In other words, the Single Buyer is the sole wholesale purchaser holding PPAs with generators whereby the SMO runs the grid and settles accounts.
Based on the response the regulators’ main reassurance is on cost.
“The Single Buyer charge is MK2.83/kWh, and it is attached to the function, not the institution. Whichever entity holds the Single Buyer licence is entitled to receive the same MK2.83/kWh… Consequently, the re-establishment of PML will not, in itself, lead to an increase in electricity tariffs,” reads an extract from the response directed at the concerns raised by CDEDI.
They also reject the “poor timing” claim saying the re-establishment of PML demonstrates a commitment to addressing the underlying structural deficiencies that have constrained the country’s development for years.
In their view, the country’s electricity outages cannot be fixed by only patching wires.
“You must also fix how power is bought, accounted for, and dispatched. For instance, the tariff structure are generated based on Single Buyer averages which is MK1.62/kWh, Transmission is pegged at MK8.39/kWh, SMO MK3.63/kWh and Distribution MK55.34/kWh, with the end-user tariff at MK157.50/kWh average,” MERA says while highlighting that the separation avoids conflicts and improves oversight.
But CDEDI is not moved by saying Malawi’s crisis is megawatts, not manuals.
“Reviving PML is unnecessary reform,” it insists, warning that the country risks funding more Executives while generation of electricity remains short.
“The human heart of the story is trust. A fish trader in Mzuzu who lost stock to a blackout does not care about unbundling charts. A mother in Area 25 paying MK174.55/kWh wants to know if the next reform will mean light, or just another line on the bill,”
Meanwhile, MERA says it has been consultative giving an example of the last base tariff review, saying it held public hearings in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu, and cut ESCOM’s proposed 69.7% increase to 50.8% after scrutiny.
The regulator insists that the process is open and evidence-based. Yet the gulf remains.
Regulators speak the language of market structure and compliance while CDEDI speaks the language of austerity and lived experience. One side says “dedicated Single Buyer, better oversight.” The other says “generation first, fewer institutions.”
For now, the licence is in limbo, and with it, public confidence.
The outcome will not be judged in legal clauses, but in whether the lights stay on, and whether the bill feels fair.
Until then, the debate is Malawi in miniature: technical reform versus public trust, and the search for a model that delivers both power and credibility.
