Unknown people have stolen an electric cable connecting to one of the buildings at Capital Hill in Lilongwe, disrupting some operations at the government’s offices.

Minister of Energy, Newton Kambala confirmed of the development in an interview with the press on Thursday.

According to Kambala, the incident happened between Sunday and Monday and has since condemned the development.

He says theft of electricity copper cables is one of the major causes of the blowing off of electricity transformers, which cost a lot of money to replace.

The minister says such trends increase the operation cost of Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi, which might also be causing an increase in electricity tariffs.

He has made the remarks in Nkhotakota at the launch of construction of a 21 Megawatts solar power plant project by Phanes Group.