Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. A Zambian politician has attributed Zimbabwe’s perennial power crisis to “leadership.”
Joseph Kalimbwe, the Information and Publicity Secretary for the United Party for National Development (UPND), said Zimbabwe and Zambia used Kariba to generate electricity and only “leadership” differentiated experiences in the two southern African countries.
In a Twitter post seen by Pindula News on 28 September 2022, Kalimbwe said:
We both use & share the Kariba Dam to generate electricity. But on one end of the Kariba there is uninterrupted electricity while on the other it’s stories each day. The answer is simple; leadership !!!
His remarks come as the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), a subsidiary of ZESA Holdings this week announced increased nationwide load-shedding blaming generation problems and shrinking imports.
Meanwhile, Zambia’s integrated power utility ZESCO in July 2022 declared that the country had a surplus capacity of about 1 000 megawatts (MW) at a time the country is also enjoying an economic rebound.
The rebound started with the election of president Hakainde Hichilema who replaced Edgar Lungu in August 2021.
ZESCO Managing Director Eng. Victor Mapani said the installed national generation capacity stands at 3 456.8 MW compared to a peak national demand of approximately 2 300MW.
Zimbabwe is even importing electricity from Zambia.
In July, Minister of Energy and Power Development, Zhemu Soda said ZESA paid US$6.4 million to enable Zimbabwe to start receiving electricity from Zambia by the 1st of August.
Zimbabwe has a power-generating capacity of 1 400 megawatts against a projected national peak demand of 2 400 megawatts creating a deficit of between 1000 MW and 1 600 MW.
ZESA, the local power utility, is in the process of rehabilitating the country’s power stations that have been problematic due to ageing equipment.
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