power from South Africa and Namibia at a cost of $260 000 daily to mitigate the impact of power shortage in the country.
Most parts of Zambia have been experiencing extensive load shedding since Saturday.
This was after ZESCO shut down two of its six generators at Kafue Gorge Power Station, resulting in a national deficit of about 500 mega watts.
The generators have been shut down due to the blockage of the water in-let by weed which has accumulated at the site and reduced the flow of water.
ZESCO Limited Director-Transmission and Generation, Christopher Nthala says the power company is importing 100 Mega watts of power from ESCOM in South Africa and 150 Mega watts from Namibia’s NAMPOWER.
BUT Mr. Nthala said works to clear the weed at the water in-let which started on Saturday, have not yielded success.
And Energy minister Kenneth Konga has directed ZESCO management to treat the problem at the power station as an emergency.
Kafue Gorge Power Station is currently generating 400 Mega watts, instead of its usual 900 Mega watts as a result of reduced water levels to the in-let.
[ZNBC]
Ba Zesco yo carelesness has costed you, now zambia is importing power, you shud have been pro active other than reactive
So you tell me the inlets do not have sievers? you should have thing that,water supports plant life.
hai ba #1
Poor management.
We need qualified and innovative minds to run Zesco…..honestly the rains where very fine, What is that which blocked the water way? Shame on you …that money would have been spent on rural eletrification…..set your priorities right or quit on moral grounds
OMG
ZESCO is finished.
Zambia mother Zambia wat befallen you
God has blessed you with many water falls, but you choose to import from another
the 6m $ u are using to buy for RSA is enough to build as many dams as possible
we are our learned kanshi?
You reckon those pot bellied managers can be proactive? they were just watching the weeds grow while eating chicken and chips in their offices and going for poverty reduction seminars in Siavonga.Now see how much money you are going to waste.what a shame.
Now the of cost importing electricity will be more than what would have cost to remove the weeds right on time, how I wish your salaries would have been used for electricity been imported, so that next time you set your prioritie right. Do we have to wait for disaster for Zesco to act???? had you people been monitering these weeds, we wouldn’t have been facing this problem, your carelessness has cost you big time. F.o.olish Zesco.
What goes on in Zedian parastatals is a shame. Instead of using money for maintanance of equipment, they use it for presidential trips. when the president or whatever government official decides to tour, they call up Zesco, ask how much it has in its coffers and demand it. If you d.a.r.e tell them its for maintanance of equipment, you will be looking for a job the next day!
where was Zesco when these weeds where spreeding? fire them and employee people who are willing to work, we do not want people who just sit in their offices doing nothing but waiting to get paid.
hmm. really, just now SA wa suffering from loadshedding and now they have enough to export.. and Zambia.. we have no excuse for this nonsense. what are all the rivers and falls for..tourist attraction and being named by europeans.. dont we have educated proactive people that think outside the bos.. all these billions being stolen..would we have built a new supply stattion. its really a shame that everything is crambling down when it could have all be avoided.
This really tastes bad,and its sad to read,one wonders what kind of engineers and manager we have at Zesco.Surely are they telling us that they don’t have a monitoring team to be checking on the status of water intake point at Kafue Gorge Power station,I mean basically this is supposed to be a routine to check on any obstructions that might impair the power station.Fellow countrymen i don’t understand this.awe kwena pa zed napalubana.God help us!
shameless gov
$260 000 daily…..yo yo! just now we had a shortage of electricity in SA and now we have enough to export… hmm, there is some serious capitalism going on here and zambia is just asleep.. do we rea;lly have an excuse for putting ourselves in this.. dont we have enough resourses that can even enable us to be doing the exportation… when are we going to be proactive sure..when are we going to put our money and resources to good use.. we have engineers, we have rivers, dams lakes and money that goes to peoples pockets and SA…cant we use this for constructions…damn it hurts
How much would it have cost us to keep the river weed free and under maintanence…more than $260 000..this is rediculours… carelesness at its best..things are going wrong they are busy getting fat like pigs…total animal farm leadership
How much would it have cost us to keep the river weed free and under maintanence…more than $260 000?..this is rediculou$.. careleSne$$ at its best..things are going wrong they are busy getting fat like ………..total animal farm leadership
the govt nd its zesco staff is failing to run ,mwa filwa uku running, peleni ichalo ba shi chilufya sata,ba controlle.
Prepare for hard times ahead.
LOADSHED SINCE 2000 Y PIPO ZO-ONA.ANYWAY TULI MABLAK ABAFITA NIGGERS WE CANT TRUN OUR THINGS BA RUPIAH BANDA,
THumbs up Zesco!! Good job! You guys are just too intelligent to be in Zambia:))
#13… imagine, if there is money why not build more hydro power station in Zed, we could export some of it, than keeing money for importation electricity. IF you calculate how much it will cost for 2 weeks its a lot,we are talking of about K1,352,000,000 per day. Why employee people who can’t think to run such companies e.g abena Sisala.
As if it were not bad enough that the teachers’ strike is disrupting education. Then along comes a massive power cut that prevents home study, shuts down offices, prevents commerce – please!
Some problems are unavoidable. Those which are not come under the heading ‘criminal negligence’. Stop ruining the country, Zesco.
# 10 an 11 I concur with you 100%. Under capitalism even those in state owned firms need to jack up or leave. We have too many cosmetic engineers in Zambia. Honestly how does an engineer accumulate a pot belly to that level
It’s almost as though it was a plan… how embarrassing Zambia. How come the Zimbabwe side of the river is clean anyway?
#19.., You know….and its not that us bloggers just like whinning, some of these things sure…its a disgrace
Forget about routine or preventative maintenance. It is water under the bridge. It is now an emergency. But what I saw on TV was BAU (Business as Usual). A few boats, one or two machines. There should have been alot of people, numerous machines and boats perhaps even with the army joining in befitting an emergency situation. #2. The intake or inlet has a screen or sieve as you have put it but what good is the screen if it clogged.
poor management! Does its management ever visit the sites? if they did, they would have seen the weeds growing. If I were the MD for Zesco, or Energy Minister, I would definitely make sure the Operations Director is relieved off duties.
How could they even have foreseen such a situation when they are always in their massive offices or at some conference somewhere the whole day. No practical work pa zed. Somebody should have been able to see this coming a long time ago so as to prevent it. Learn from some bosses from other countries how they operate. Always on the floor, and not in suits in an office. Fyakale ifyo
#24 Nachale is wondering: How come the Zimbabwean side of the river is clean? Dear Nachale it could be that there is no Kafue River on the Zimbabwean side…..
But ubu ebusushi kwena. How do they let weeds get to this level of leading to shut down? Common sense tells you that maintenance is important. I guess they wanted the President to act, since everyone points to the Presidnet as having been ineffective. Ati malabishi bati, shyaaa!
Fimoneni ukula kushafye utumafumo. get out of your offices and do same practical work
29, Mbundi Chuma. Yeah, but our way of doing things make Zim look good… anytime anywhere.
Miss daisy is that trully you on the photo? just asking, they say curiosity killed a cat, but satisfaction brought it back!
Thes Zesco people are not serious ith their work, there should have been care and maintainance.
i thought zesco has been increasing capacity since 2003 or so so this is just pa kamwa? when will these new generators start functioning loadshading since then u have been saying increasing capacity as an excuse where is that capacity kanshi tu moneko. so u dont do routine checks te? coz if u did u wud have seen it coming next time the generators will sto functioning
#33..ola…Ninebo mukwai…can you imagine.. fi zesco eish
#33 You are wondering how a pretty face can discuss serious business on the blog because God in his infinite wisdom rarey gives beauty with brains. But once in a while he can slip up. #31 Those same amafumo are the ones women fight over. Beauty and the beast.
The example of Dr Moyo comes to mind.
you are great
Miss Daisy you are great.
We should be exporting electricity not importing. Zesco management this is a shame. What do you do in your offices kanshi? Kuti ulefwaya ukuya ku mwenu ku Zed; nomba namalaiti takwaba? mmmmmhhhh!!!
Fire them all ….they dont work but always playing arround with fimafumo. Ata bane pa ZED napapwa. Every thing is falling apart.
When we talk, ati mapolitics. Zesco can afford the luxury of negligence because the cost of the mess will be slapped on our monthly bills. I don’t think it’s the weeds but the break down of the fake hydro-turbine bought at a black market in China
#2 imebo says. we carried out a tour of the site on tuesday. the intake has sieves and that is why the generators are not damaged. they were just switched off because if not enough water is flowing things can get damaged. we also discovered that the weed in question is not the visible one that was shown on tv as that one is harmless in this case since it cannot even get to the sieve. the visible floating weed is stopped from reaching the sieve by the criss cross arrangement of floaters that you saw on tv. regarding monitoring, engineers explained that this is monitored day and night by checking water differences between the dam and the intake, and all was normal until alert personnel noticed a sudden low water pressure.
the weed that caused the problem is actually dead material suspended under water and came from upstream on the river and sucked towards the intake tunnels. it shows signs of something cut up maybe by people clearing their land upstream. when it reached the dam it was sucked towards the intake by the turbines but it is trapped by the sieve thus causing it to block. if this happened gradually it would be seen by a drop in water pressure and triping of generators one after another which was not the case. in all fairness looking at the design and the explanation by the engineers at site one appreciates the calibre of those engineers. but if i was not there in person i would probably condemn them too, like everybody else who thinks this was a simple matter until they see for themselves.
the import of power was done to alleviate your suffering to some extent. the sadc utilities have an agreement to help each other in times of emergency like this. we learnt that before this actually zesco was also exporting during certain hours when they had surplus. quite educative i must say.
what can we ever do for oursleves we have embarrased oursleves too much.
Ni chifita, guys don’t worry you already know. awe bwafya kwena.
ZESCO should have been aware of those ” underground water” weeds that have blocked its systems. I believe it is much cheaper for them to control those “dead” weeds than to import power from SA or Nam. So why is dead weed so difficult for them to remove? The president should wake up and know that the country is fast sinking like a Titanic! Why should problems always be too big for our leaders. Honestly, RB does not deserve that job. It is too complex for him!