Treasurer for the grouping of concerned residents, Chrispin Kazembe says this comes as the area has had no power since November 2022 following ESCOM's delays to replace four faulty transformers.

"This is the third time for the theft of electricity wires to happen in the area. The ESCOM workers took the transformers in the area in November 2022 after they had developed faults and our efforts to follow up at Thyolo and Blantyre offices have yielded no results," Kazembe said.

He worried that the delay has affected people's livelihoods including about 600 dairy farmers from Namahoya cooperative, Amazing Grace and New Dairy who are losing on average 1, 000 litres of milk on daily basis.

Currently, a litre of milk is going at K305, meaning that they are losing about K305, 000 a day as they cannot afford to run the fuel generators.

Meanwhile, in a written response, ESCOM's communications manager, Kitty Chingota has confirmed about the theft of wires at Ndata gate near Namahoya dairy.

 Chingota has however indicated that the corporation is waiting for the imported 33 KV transformers to replace the outstanding areas.

 "These are 33 KV transformers which we have not had for some time now. As soon as we get transformers, we will replace together with the rest of outstanding faulty transformers," she said.

Recently, ESCOM told Zodiak Online that this year, it has lost K500 million owing to vandalism of its infrastructure.