MPILO Central Hospital has gone for nearly a week without electricity owing to a fault at a substation that feeds the referral facility and surrounding suburbs.

The public hospital has been relying on generators for the past five days, but at a huge cost because of the need to purchase fuel to power them.

Mpilo Central Hospital chief medical director, Narcisius Dzvanga, confirmed the development saying the health facility needed an independent power line to ensure constant supplies.

“We do not have an independent power line,” Dzvanga told Southern Eye in an interview.

“As long as there is no Zesa in Barbourfields suburb, we will be affected. We have our standby generators to push us for our operations but this comes at a huge cost.

Southern Eye heard that there is a fault at the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) sub-station in Emakhandeni, that supplies Barbourfields, Harrisvalle and areas around Northlea.

Ward 2 councillor Adrien Moyo said a transformer feeding from the substation was vandalised.

“Zesa is failing to give us feedback as to what is happening but it is quick to demand its payment at the end of the month,” Moyo said.

Acting Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company southern region manager, Lloyd Jaji, said he was not allowed to speak to the Press.

“I am not allowed 

to comment, unless I am given permission to do so,’’ Jaji said

Zimbabwe, however, is enduring rolling electricity outages due to depressed power generation.

Thunderstorms have also been blamed for worsening the power cuts.

The Bulawayo City Council has been battling for control of the city’s thermal power plant to ensure lights remain on.

The Bulawayo power plant was expropriated by Zesa more than two decades ago after the amalgamation of all the local authority electricity undertakings.

The facility is currently feeding zero power to the national grid which is struggling to service the southern African nation enduring 18-hour load-shedding.

Residents and business operators want the shareholding structure of the power station to be revised.