Over a week ago ZESA announced that they had suffered a fault at Hwange-again. This is despite the many hundreds of millions already spend at Hwange to “upgrade it”. A few days later we were told the issue at Hwange had been resolved and the situation had improved and we would see fewer load-shedding hours. That has turned out to be just another lie. At the moment most neighbourhoods are spending around 10-1 hours without power.

It’s not clear what is causing the latest spate of load-shedding but experience has taught us there are two probable reasons:

  • ZESA is angling for a tariff hike. That happens a lot whenever the authorities at ZESA are seeking a tariff hike they tend to institute loashedding to highlight our power crisis by switching off power liberally especially when most people need it the most.
  • We are not getting enough additional power from the region and the fatcats and bigwigs are consuming all we have and making sure to exempt themselves from loadshedding.

It could be a combination of the two but most small businesses are beginning to see the effects of extended power cuts. Mbare Musika is one such area with most foodstuffs and meat that need refrigeration going bad. Also due to recent rains ZESA has been dealing with a spate of faults.

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