Malawi and Mozambique have amended their electricity deal to create a “win-win” situation for both countries, Malawi’s government confirmed on Wednesday.

Malawi’s secretary for energy, Winford Masanjala, confirmed that in the new deal both countries can either import or export to each other depending on excess power.

Under the previous deal, Malawi was only allowed to import electricity from Mozambique but not export the same if it had excess power.

Currently Malawi is unable to export power because it has a deficit in its generation capacity. The country’s demand stands at 300 megawatts against production of 200 megawatts.

Both Malawi and Mozambique are members of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Southern Africa under the auspices of SADC.

The members of SAPP have created common power grid between their countries and a common market for electricity in the SADC region.

The Mozambique-Malawi power interconnection deal was often torn apart by Malawians saying the project was a total waste likely to rip off Malawians of their hard earned forex.

They believed that the deal not viable. According to them, Maputo had failed Zimbabwe, Namibia and other countries on similar power deals.