By Alois Vinga
The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) shadow Minister of Energy and Power Development Leslie Mhangwa has criticized the government for the current power outages, saying they are man-made, a result of poor planning.
His comments fly in the face of authorities who claim the outages were triggered by the El Nino-induced drought which has seen water levels at the hydroelectric-powered Kariba Dam depleting, forcing the nation to resort to load shedding.
But speaking to Open Parly recently, the Chinhoyi MP slammed authorities for the incessant power cuts arguing the country is not producing enough energy.
“I quizzed the Energy Minister for an explanation over the gap of what is being produced and demanded in our peak region which is about 300 to 400 MW and that should not translate to the prolonged load shedding that we are having.
“Ordinarily we have the peak in the mornings and evenings so if your production is constant it means that when the demand gets lower, the gap is narrowed,” he said.
In response, the minister referred to the fact that loads that are exempted from load shedding are those that have dedicated feeds in the form of hospitals, critical loads which take a chunk out of what is being produced.
Added Mhangwa, “Our electricity situation, sadly so is much dire, unfortunately from the other side of the government, they described it as subdued.
“What is needed by the industry and what is needed by the consumers at home we are getting far less than we need. This is not something you can attribute to a Natural Disaster or what’s the impression they want to give is that predominantly it’s because of Kariba.
“This is man-made. This is because of lagging in our planning and implementation of our energy projects.”
However, some sections of the society have dismissed the Shadow Minister’s observations, describing them as cheap politicking contradicting the realities on the ground.
For instance, Zambia which shares the Kariba Dam has been experiencing acute power outages with consumers enjoying electricity for just three hours a day in a development which begs the question as to whether Zambians have also been bad energy planners.
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