Government has said that the power outage experienced at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport on Tuesday was as a result of the trip on the entire electricity supply system.
Transport, Works, Supply and Communication Deputy minister Mutaba Mwali said in a statement yesterday that despite the outage, the luggage check-in and passengers were screened appropriately and security and safety measures were in place at all times.
Mr Mwali said standby generators were immediately activated and restored power to most parts of the airport except for the concourse where power failure persisted because of a medium voltage panel which had broken down as a result of the power outage.
He said engineers from ZESCO and the National Airports Corporation Limited (NACL) managed to repair the broken down panel and restored supply to the concourse for lighting and checking-in through a bypass.
“Electricity supply to other facilities such as the control block, runway, taxiways and navigation aids was constant during this period through the stand by generators,” Mr Mwali said.
He said investigations to establish the cause of the trip have been instituted.
NACL has since suspended the use of lifts, escalators and the arrival baggage carousel at the airport until full power supply was restored in the terminal building.
Management has since apologized to the customers and passengers for the inconvenience caused and thanked ZESCO for their timely intervention.
The explanation Sounds reasonable enough.I wonder why zwd were exaggerating the reasons behind the power failure.
Such a thing can only happen when you have retards in government.
@ 2 Blago,
You sound to be more of a retard than those in GVT.
# 1, never take these politicians explanation as Gospel Truth please. They will always have some explanation available each time they want to do something evil. Putting so much trust in human beings is very dangerous.
Why are people surprised about power outage anywhere? Is this new? The whole power generation system is rotten. It is not news when power goes for two days in Chipata compound or Chaisa, but news just because it affects people with money? Good grief, its not news to me – give us a private comany to run electricity in Zambia.
Those who stay near the airport who is telling the truth ZWD or Mr Mwali.. According to ZWD power went off around 16hrs, by 21hrs it was still not restored and standby gen sets failed to work
Tumbo #5 – we do not need to replace state monopoly with private monopoly. I would suggest we all scramble for exits (like the borehole story that is an ordinary feature now). That way we will devolve the nonsense of relying on incompetents for essential services. Yes, and I also mean private hospitals, private universities … Like the Shell motto I say “Lets Go”.
#2 ELECTRICITY TRIPS ARE ALLOVER THE WORLD EVEN IN AMERICA WHERE YOU LIVE. BUT A RETARD LIKE YOU WOULDN’T KNOW THIS. THE BLAME WOULD HAVE ARISEN IF THERE WERE NO CONTINGENT PLANS IN SUCH A CIRCUMSTANCE.
Blackout at the airport, i was very surprised. I was at the airport at this time and luggage was going in and coming our without screening. Mr minister, tell the truth, chances are that government or top officials were bringing in or taking out something …. most likely huge sums of cash or bullott paper for Mufumbwe. I dont trust politicians, especially the CNP crop of politicians
Those whp travel frequently know that such things happen once in a while, I have experienced it myself at the Jommo Kenyatta International Airport in Kenya and people made no fuss about it. The important thing is to have contigency measures like Generators, at first it sounded as tho even generators were not there!!
iI WAS THIER PERSONAL ,THE MINISTER IS TELLING TRUTH,
Trip? Yaluta kuni mwewo? Lol
When the minister of defence is busy corrupting Zesco for his personal businesses how do you expect Zesco to perform efficiently? The security of the nation was left vulnerable with this incopetent PF minister who is untouchable by Sata. Zambia are being made fools while plunder and theft is openly conducted. PF to fight corruption is a joke. GBM has this audaucity to mock the nation of corruption because Mr Sata is doing it big time with Roads department at state house. As said before,Sata can never fight corruption.
LT u are now compromised just like the POST. Did u report on this issue in the first place? How then do u even use the word ‘the’ in this article? I thought ZW was just playing politics since no other publication carried this story to the best of my knowledge and I’m so sure (100%) that u did not. Look at this so called GRZ, why taking so long to respond? Does it mean this has only happened in the PF govoernement? PF, POST, and now LT are a bunch of liars. U are all stupid people who cannot be trusted
From 1991 to 2011; MMD government did not see it sensible to build a single electricity generation plant. So you want things to improve now? No chance!! Enjoy the outages;
What happened at the airport is not strange. Why do we like blogging even on matters we have little understanding about! Where on earth can one not experience that? @ Sansamukeni, good observation and I am glad you know Jomo Kenyata (such a beautiful airport and advanced). Friends, be reasonable and try to move about. You will gain instead of runing in-short of. Thought of Pearson International in Canada?
Big thing were being smuggled in the country.somthing big was either stolen or brought in dont be blinded we shall dig deeper
Only feeble minded chaps read Zambia Watchpig and digest all the crap!
If that is the case then why does Ukwa and his minion want to close the site down? For your information Mrs Ukwa, Nkandu Luo and Miles Sampa also read Zambian Watchdog. Am glad you realise just like the rest of us that they are feeble minded as you put it.
I stopped visiting that site for close to a year now. The chaps there are very arrogant, insolent and ungrateful.
Bishop Mpundu’s !”$%^&*()_)_
The read the crap but they don’t digest it unlike you who takes it as the holy grail and goes to chin wag about it with your bored mates in your lounge/kitchen/bedsitter!
Mulelandako ichisungu ichamano …”a trip” really??? What kind of English is that. Suckers lol
Thank you for the best efforts you put in.
I would suggest that you perhaps upgrade the emergency power standby system so that it automatically changes from the national grid to the generators.
Please govnt, allow private companies to start generating electricity. Only competion among such companies will solve the problem, otherwise relying on ZESCO alone, will not help. Give them licences,Iam sure some companies will come on board.
Those were GBM`s Zesco poles being smuggled in the country.Ha ha ha…now i am blogging like a mentally challenged person just like 50 % of the bloggers i see here.
ZESCO has become too big to be effective. Break it up and privatise The units . Let that electricity company in Kitwe also supply houses with the energy so that there is competition. Otherwise it will just be explanations after explanations. The politicians want to keep the current scenario so that they can siphon money for compaigns from ZESCO
and a post news reporter says cargo was offloaded from the planes on the runway, I hope he/she understood what that means.
Flight heading or coming from Amsterdam, no lights – DRUGS! We have too many drug dealing minorities in our country let us invest in sniffer dogs!