Zimbabwe has no immediate funding to ease the current electricity crisis, Energy and Power Development Minister Zhemu Soda revealed on Friday.
Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, Soda admitted that the country is facing a power crisis. He said:
The government is making an intervention. This is a crisis situation and we hope through that intervention, funding will be available to apply for the additional capacity that we are looking forward to getting from our neighbours.
Zimbabwe’s hopes of importing additional electricity from Zambia were dampened with the neighbouring country set to commence a six-hour daily load-shedding regime from 15 December.
On Friday, Zambia’s Energy minister Peter Kapala issued a ministerial statement in Parliament saying the country’s power utility, ZESCO, will implement a load management regime aimed at rationing power generation at the Kariba Complex to avoid a complete shutdown.
Meanwhile, Soda said Zimbabwe is importing a combined 250 megawatts (MW) from South Africa, Zambia, and Mozambique.
He said additional negotiations are ongoing, with 150MW expected from Mozambique.
The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), which manages the Zambezi River on behalf of Zimbabwe and Zambia cut ZESA’s power generation capacity to 300MW down from 600MW, while ZESCO will reduce generation to a maximum of 800 megawatts until further review.
Zhemu urged consumers to reduce their load by employing energy conservation and efficiency measures. He said:
The ministry urges all consumers to reduce load by employing energy conservation and efficiency measures. Lights must be switched off in all offices at night and other measures like rightsizing of equipment, use of energy savers.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Kurai Matsheza said a failure to address the power crisis will be a huge blow to manufacturers during the busiest season of the year. | NewsDay
Haaa tirikutongwa nezvishuri chaizvo...so all along they were not planning untill this crisis as at our doorstep! Even chiri chokwadi kuti mudam hamuchina mvura, vaivepi mvura ichipera since last season? Why cudnt they put measures so that when the dam dries up, they switch to plan B? So all along they were only busy chasing Nero uku zvinhu zvichifa ?
Nero anovashaisa hope kani,kana izvozvi zvekuti zvipatara hazvina mishonga havazvione vachingofunga nezva Nero chete
Next year tinenge takushandisa satelite kuona kuti Kariba one mvura here , muzvipatara mune mishonga here , Mari dzema civil servants dzrikuvakwanira here, maroads edu akamira sei.