Thursday, March 28, 2024

Edith Nawakwi offers to work for free to Coordinate the Work in the Energy Sector

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FDD President Edith Nawakwi
FDD President Edith Nawakwi

FDD President Edith Nawakwi has offered to give her time and expertise for free to the PF Government to help sort out the energy crisis the country is facing.

And the opposition leader says increasing electricity tariffs is not the solution to the current Energy challenges the country is facing.

Ms. Nawakwi says she is willing to do pro-borno work for the Government of the Republic of Zambia and help relieve the pressure on Republican President Edgar Lungu by coordinating the work required to sort out the challenges in the Energy Sector.

She explained that she does not need to be paid, love the President or be friends with him for her to help the country.

“This is were I say that if the President could just listen and not think that everybody must love him, he should just pick up a phone and call me and say my sister can we sit down and talk about how we can help each other in solving these challenges.

These are issues were I can relieve the pressure off the President and coordinate the work in Energy Sector pro-borno, I don’t need to be paid, I don’t need to love the President, I don’t need to be his friend to be able to help my country,” she said.

She added that if given the mandate she would sit down with ZESCO, CEEC and other players in the sector and ensure that solutions were found to the challenges as opposed to comparing the current Energy crisis to other countries in the region.

” I would sit down with ZESCO, CEEC and other players in the sector and help them address the root causes of the problems and map out both the short term and long term solutions. We have to see when we can for instance get a solar project coming on stream because you can build a solar plant within 9 months. We should be saying ZESCO has signed a power purchase agreement with such and such a company and will be coming on a solar stream in 9 months. It is the fastest way to supplying power to this country.

I head the President talking to Zambians living in Bostwana, he says South Africa is load shedding, Bostwana is load shedding, Tanzania is load shedding what is wrong with Zambia load shedding? There is no ambition! Now South Africa has announced that they are putting on stream 800 mega watts so his comparison of South Africa is behind current affairs. I want to know what’s the way out.

I don’t want to hear that because my neighbor has no food so it is OK even for me and my children to suffer. What kind of a father is that? Your friend has no uniform so its fine even you should not have a uniform, if you shift into a house which is leaking you say its fine because it has always been leaking, that is the behavior of the PF,” Ms. Nawakwi observed.

And Ms. Nawakwi has noted that Increasing electricity tariffs is not the solution to the challenges in the power sector and that doing so is a recipe for creating other problems.

“The Minister is trying to justify tariff increments because he wants to squeeze the small group who are hooked to the electricity grid not knowing that the more he increases the more deforestation takes root so he is not solving anything but creating other problems in the same sector.

Frankly speaking I don’t expect Zambian households to pay as much as they are paying in DRC where there are no generation stations but I expect the mining sector to pay a parity price. Not only do we have plenty of water” continued Ms. Nawakwi, “but we also have huge potential for generation of clean energy such as solar energy among others.

She added ” I expect this Government to use ZESCO as a platform for diversifying our interest in the mining sector and turning them to earning money from power generation. DRC tariffs are 40cents per kilowatt while Zambia is at 11….doesn’t it not interest our friends in Government that they can do a contract with DRC come back to Zambia and offer a private developer a contract even at 25cents who would then use the contract with Government to lend money from banks for the development of a power station? This is a simple mathematical theory of trade economics.”

She also disputed the Minister’s assertions that private players were shunning the Energy sector because of the low tariffs saying it is the attitude of Government officials which is hindering the private sector from partaking in the development of the power sector because the sector has been politicized.

The opposition leader was commenting on Energy Minister Christopher Yaluma’s claims that the solution to the challenges in the Energy Sector are as a result of low tariffs which has hindered significant investment as Government has been subsidizing the production of power.

The Minister also claimed that private investors have shunned investing in the Energy Sector because of the low tariffs. He said this when he featured on a live program on ZNBC dubbed the Sunday Interview.

13 COMMENTS

  1. Madam Nawakwi maybe you need to hold a convention and get mandate from your party. You are abrogating your own party constitution but you want to be the country champion

    • Can it be true that Edgar was telling Zambians in Botswana that other countries are load-shedding so Zambia should also do it? I can’t believe a sober man can say that… A man saying ” Look Mumbi Phiri, Kapata, Dora are all on family planning so you also my wife should do the same…”

  2. If Nawakwi want to offer free service, let me tell her that I started offering free service to late Sata over the 90-days promises, and calling his PF Ministers as foooools/ Useless. I told him to stop that… but I was wrong, Sata was right, most of them are useless, that is why even Edgar has decided to adopt just 30 of the MPs. And Edgar can’t find any good ministers, end up sneaking in UPND for low calibre MPs like Shamunene.
    Yes Edgar here is free clean skinned/ minded Nawakwi, give her office of Minister-without-portfolio.

  3. That comment was made by Harry Kalaba and president Lungu disassocited himself from that comment and said it should not be a consolation that Botswana was in a similar predicament. it was on ZNBC tv . Nawakwi should not lie.

    • Iwe na iwe ears can hear but listening is for the brain to engage. We arent supposed to listen to all the rubbish being directed at us

  4. it is this same nawaki who contributed to this problem when she authorised subsidizing electricity to the mine while we the tax payer were paying through our nose so she should just shut up.

  5. There is nothing new in what Nawakwi is saying. This lady was Energy Minister in 1994 when we experienced serious load shedding due to the same problem currently. We did not have adequate rains then. But she did nothing about it. She even became Finance minster later but did not do anything of investment in the power sector. She must not cheat and claim that she is an energy expert. Electricity tariffs were increased during her tenure as energy minister on same arguments as Yaluma. She had South Africans on her back. If we ask the media to go back in 1994 and look for her debates on this matter. she will be embarrassed.

  6. Imwe na imwe ba Nawakwiiiii! And you expect Lungu to say Yes come and help us so that he can allow you to score points for your paarty which some of us dont even know the name? Ndemona mulebwasabwasafye

  7. Nawakwi since when did you become an expert on energy matters. I thought you studied Public Administration with a Minor in Economics at the University of Zambia. The fact that you once served as minister of energy does not make you an expert on energy matters. When you were minister of energy and during the MMD rule how much was invested in the energy sector. You are talking about solar energy now, during your time as minister of energy how much was invested into solar energy? My guess is ZERO. On a personal level have you put solar panels at your home? My guess is NO, all you did was to buy a noisy diesel operated generator. You are today talking about solar, something ECL talked about last month.
    TALK CAN INDEED BE CHEAP!

  8. …this lady is proving to be a comedian in her own way…..she knows very well that any-one in authority has some degree of PRIDE…how stup1d can the govt be to allow her do that….imagine the political mileage she would amass if she was engaged and the problem sorted out……

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