ESCOM senior public relations manager Kitty Chingota has told Zodiak Online Friday that losing 400 transformers is unfortunate situation, calling on the citizenry to own the Corporation infrastructure as it continues affecting service provision.

"Presently, in total close 400 transformers have been lost to vandalism. This is a very unfortunate situation and retrogressive instead of progressing as a nation in terms of power supply we are getting back to square one. A lot of people are suffering, hospital services are being disrupted and even economically, ESCOM is being affected. And we strongly condemn this behaviour," Chingota said.

Latest was the Thursday night incident at Khonjeni turn-off in Thyolo, where unknown people damaged a transformer disrupting power supply to most parts in the area.

Meanwhile, Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences-MUBAS energy expert, Dr. Suzgo Kaunda has called upon the Malawians to be patriotic and guard jealously the few ESCOM equipment since it is them that would suffer social-economically.

"We should be citizens that are responsible to protect jealously the few government property such as ESCOM infrastructure because they belong to us. This is because if we vandalise ESCOM equipment, transformers, we are the ones to suffer social-economically not the Corporation," he appealed.

This comes as ESCOM is also struggling to replace some infrastructure which were vandalised and damaged by the Tropical cyclones exposing Malawians to long-hour power outages.