Power supply effort leaves a lot to be desired

AFTER National Assembly members expressed dismay that it was taking forever for Energy and Power Development minister Zhemu Soda to come and give a ministerial statement on the country’s electricity situation, the minister finally summoned the courage to come to the august House on Wednesday.

As reported elsewhere in this edition, Soda told legislators that the country will be importing about 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity to ease the power crisis and he also expected that the troubled Hwange Thermal Power Station would soon increase its output to 400MW, while small thermal power stations will be expected to contribute a combined 45MW and independent power producers (IPPS) will be expected to contribute up to 75MW.

Despite these assurances we believe, from the look of things, the country’s power crisis is only at the infancy stage because, according to the country’s 2023 budget, we should not expect much from either the minister himself or Treasury to help the situation.

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