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(HERALD) Load-shedding to continue — Zesa

Load-shedding to continue — Zesa
Saturday, 21 May 2011 22:45 Top Stories
Sunday Mail Reporter

POWER outages will continue countrywide as the power stations in Hwange and Kariba are not able to meet the demand for electricity, an official has said.

Zesa Holdings spokesperson Mr Fullard Gwasira said power generation was so low at Hwange Thermal Power Station that it was failing to complement Kariba. This means that even though care and maintenance work was successfully carried out at Kariba Hydroelectric Power Station, the electricity situation would remain dire.

Mr Gwasira said the situation was worsened by the fact that the power utility was prioritising wheat farmers, who were consuming a lot of power.
“We are unable to import power from the region as there is very little in terms of power in the Sadc region,” he said.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Mr Justin Mupamhanga, said the Government had no alternative to load-shedding.
He said they would continue to rehabilitate power stations to maintain generation capacity.

“Apart from the rehabilitation and processes of expansion of the power stations, the truth about the situation is that there is no excess power,” said Mr Mupamhanga.
“We cannot import power from the region and remember, we are many in the region and the demand is high.”

Despite the power outages Zesa has come under fire from consumers over “inflated bills”.

But Mr Gwasira said they were no longer experiencing challenges with bills.

“What appears on the bill is what one would have consumed. There are some customers who think their bills are not correct, but they are correct. If anyone has a problem with the bills they should approach our offices,” he said.

Meanwhile, Harare Residents’ Trust Co-ordinator Mr Precious Shumba said there was widespread concern among consumers over Zesa’s failure to communicate with them pertaining to the load-shedding schedules.

“As the Harare Residents’ Trust, we have received serious concerns from residents as Zesa is failing to communicate with the people on load-shedding schedules,” he said.-The Sunday MAil

Labels: ENERGY, KARIBA DAM, ZESA

posted by MrK @ 2:09 PM