Africa-Press – Botswana. Businesses and households are encouraged to install roof top solar projects to produce their own power.
Minister of Minerals and Energy, Ms Bogolo Kenewendo shared the advice yesterday when responding to MPs debates following her statement on the current status of power supply. She said her ministry was in the process of relaunching the initiative in collaboration with financial institutions.
Responding to whether government was trusting senior government officials they were working with since they might be adding to the current situation by not rendering the correct advice, Ms Kenewendo said she would not devote her energy on doubting those she was working with.
“I trust that there are all innocent until proven guilty and our desire is to work for the benefit of Batswana. I believe we are all Batswana and will work with good intentions for the country,” she said.
Ms Kenewendo said the current power situation called for all to collaborate efforts and ensure the power supply was stable.
“We have been aware of the power supply challenge but never anticipated what was happening at Morupule B, which was worsened by increased charges for power imports,” she said.
Ms Kenewendo said failure by Morupule B to produce enough power was forcing Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) to import more, increasing its existing debt with Eskom. She said importing power was not sustainable as it was costly and BPC was not generating enough revenue to clear its debt.
The minister said re-negotiating for a better deal would only be possible after clearing the current debt with Eskom. She said even though maintenance was done at Morupule B, the plant had never performed optimally. Ms Kenewendo said for the past three years, the plant was operating at less than 33 per cent of its capacity while P5.4 billion was spent on maintenance.
On the other hand, she said a total P34 billion that was used on maintenance and importation of power could have gone towards an alternative source of power, as what was happening at Morupule B was not sustainable for the future. Therefore, Ms Kenewendo said BPC through its marketing team would continue to update the general public and other stakeholders on the power situation.
Currently, she said BPC owed Morupule Coal Mine more than P500 million. Even though transitioning towards renewable energy, Ms Kenewendo said the country would continue to invest in its coal to produce power energy.
“Our ambitions on renewable energy are on-going. Investors understand our vision and are interested to come to us and help us move forward, particularly with our ambitious economic development programme,” she said.
Ms Kenewendo said government was hopeful that the current power supply plant would be resuscitated, coupled with the imported supply from South Africa to meet local demand. Therefore, she appealed to the nation and households as well as the business community to heed their plea and to use the available power supply with care.
She said after completing negotiations with South Africa on a new and better power deal by the end of the week, coupled with improved supply from Morupule B as it was now working with two units, there was hope that the current load shedding would come to an end soon.
However, she hinted that the current situation where BPC was choking with debt while not generating enough revenue to cover for its power supply costs as well as plant and infrastructure maintenance, could lead to tariffs adjustment. Ms Kenewendo said it was necessary for BPC to come up with urgent measures to increase revenue generation to address the debt.
“In short, we must all agree that we must come together to assist BPC address the crisis at hand. If all our plans go accordingly, we will stabilise our power supply situation over the weekend,” she said.
Ms Kenewendo said since its establishment 13 years ago, Morupule B had never worked at full capacity. She said when it was at its best it was able to give 55 per cent. She said the government plan of connecting power to some households at no cost (zero connection) was on going since the funding for the project had its own account.
Leader of Opposition and Maun North MP, Mr Dumelang Saleshando said Morupule B challenges, the debt situation at BPC and the high costs of exporting power were well known issues. Mr Saleshando asked the minister to confidently state if the promised 30 per cent tariff reduction would not be possible based on the current crisis and that the current circumstances were calling for an increase in tariffs not reduction.
Bobirwa MP, Mr Taolo Lucas said government had an ambitious economic programme and power was important to running and resuscitating the economy, therefore was wondering if its ambitious plan would be possible under the current power status.
Load shedding and whether it would end in the near future equally concerned Nkange MP, Mr Motlhaleemang Moalosi. Mr Moalosi said water supply was a challenge due to load shedding and wondered how the minister was able to trust the public service leadership that had failed the past regime leading to such a crisis.
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