Chitika on the fault that plunged the entire Province to 5 days in
darkness.
ZESCO Spokesperson Henry Kapata has encouraged businesses to invest in standby generators. Mr.Kapata was in Luapula to apologize to the business fraternity for the time ZESCO had a fault that plunged the entire province in darkness for 5 days.Mr. Kapata apologized to to the business fraternity and encouraged them to have standby gensets.
Various parts of the country, particularly Eastern, Muchinga, Northern, Luapula and parts of Central Provinces experienced unprecedented powercuts on the 18th November that lasted 5-6 days.
The power outage was attributed to a fault on the Kabwe-Pensulo 330KV transmission line caused by lightning.
UPND President Hakainde Hichilema described it as a national crisis and disaster that needed urgent attention as it had the potential to lead to water borne diseases such cholera and dysentery. He wondered how hospitals and clinics in these areas coped. Mr.Hichilema said it was on record that ZESCO received the biggest share of the borrowed Euro Bond money that was meant to upgrade it’s operations through procurement of quality equipment, but to date, they could not account for the money.
A check in Kasama during the power outage,revealed that most butcheries in the Central Business District and some homes had to discard huge amounts of food after it went to waste.Other businesses such as salons, barbershop and tailoring shops recorded huge losses.
In an internal Memo to staff dated Friday, December 02 2016,ZESCO Managing Director Victor Mundende fired five top Directors at the state run power utility.
This statement proves, ZAMBIA IS INDEED A FAILED STATE!!
The definition couldn’t be further from what’s happening to the nation under this Dununa P.F, Government.
Surely rather than Government officials intimidating, & bullying Linda Kasonde, they should use their time and energy to explain what happened to the Millions of Eurobond U$ Dollars allocated for ZESCO’S rehabilitation/ refurbishment.
I read as if it was the welder who caused the power blackouts. Ngatwamulowa fye.
Generators in this day and age? It’s a non-starter! What kind of brain did God place in the black man’s skull? Why are we so dull?
Failing to plan for growth and expansion has remained Zambia’s nagging Achilles heel. ZESCO’s clever management simply failed to plan ahead.
Imagine Shoprite encouraging customers to buy bread from PicknPay. Ludicrous! & these !diots want to increase tariffs.
You Zambians are very dull. All we are saying is that there is no visible end to load shedding,
so ZESCO and the PF gabament will not be responsible for any business losses.
And we are tired of subsidizing your electricity bills and do not have the motivation to do so especially very soon after winning an election that was heavily funded by money looted from ZESCO.
After all, this is the rubbish you voted for. Let us be glad and rejoice in it.
Nonsense, what kind of leadership does Zesco have, they should have alternatives themselves not making Zambia to be like Nigeria.. we have abundant water so whats the problem, more over technology has changed..
Zambia and Africa are real dark contents. Encourage solar power and not generators
It just shows uncoordinated thinking because air pollution is not being taken into account!
show me a country that ever developed with the current solar technology? dont just follow terminologies and thoughts given you by the white man. Ati solar,kwisa, ati reneweable energy.
@zagaze, I am not sure if this example scales but there is a German town/village (Wildpodsried) that is producing more energy from solar power than it actually needs (over 300% if I remember that report). The idea is to make a start and then scale. It CAN be done. It is just that in Zambia we inflate everything, including developmental projects; in the end even simple initiatives begin to look impossible.
IT IS REALLY SHOCKING THAT ZAMBIA HAS TO IMPORT GENERATORS FROM CHINA, USA, EUROPE OR UK AND YET WE HAVEZESCO AN ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRICITY ENGINEERING COMPANY. WHY CAN’T ZESCO DESIGN GENERATORS? DON’T ZESCO ENGINEERS KNOW HOW TO DESIGN AND MAKE GENERATORS? THE SAME THING APPLIES TO ZAMTEL. WHY CAN’T ZAMTEL DESIGN PHONES? BT DESIGNS AND MAKE PHONES. AT LEAST LAND PHONES. REALLY, DO WE HAVE TO IMPORT FRIDGES AND STOVES WHEN ZESCO AS AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING COMPANY SHOULD DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE THESE THINGS. ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS COMPANIES, PLEASE, WAKE UP.
iwe chi kapata, you know that generators are un economical and unsustainable for any use due to high fuel prices. bushe you just have to talk even when it makes no sense?
It speaks volumes about Zambia’s standard of education – cause enough for us to shed tears.
I hope that in 5-10 years’ time Zesco would have lost the electricity power supply monopoly and become like Zamtel, an also-ran in telecomms. With solar power for basic lighting and power supply for small appliances, solar heating, and gas fire cooking, a household can escape the Zesco mediocrity and madness. Zesco will only hold captive the large power users like industries and mines. This is where Zamtel is now because every body else uses a mobile from MTN or Airtel. Landlines are still favoured by large companies who can wait for months to get a connection in urban areas.
I still call on the investigative wings to cage Kaponya (HH) and his bandits for deliberately burning the 330 Kv line.
2016 vote Mr Kudos Most Popular Revolutionary Radical Patriotic Blogger
Whst kind of incompetence is this…surely 5-6 days of loadshedding. You dont need a standby generator for that you need your own Power supply.This company needs to be unbundled asap…
Comment:kupwishafye load sheding ba kapata..the way u’re sounding as if L.S. ikatwalilila.
Fo0ls like kudos who have their brain under their butts should not be allowed to comment. Thanks Zesco for apologising.
Africa with plenty of sun, wind, water and other natural resources like minerals, oil etc and still that is not enough to generate enough energy for its people. Until we start taking responsibility of our actions or inaction, we will remain just a waste of time on the planet. For most people (including our leaders) anything is business as usual. We lack ambition and responsibility. With the current mindset of Africans, Africa will continue to face new forms of colonization. Many still talk about struggle for political independence. We are still colonized in many ways and we continue to allow it with our ineptitude and irresponsibility. Take a moment and reflect about this issue.
Just imagine Luapula Province with all those streams and lakes experiencing load-shedding its just gross incompetence and lack of priorities by this Lazy Lungu Gov’t.
Zambia in the sun! Really?
Sell Zescoro to private and reputable organisations with proven and successful backgrounds. We don’t have our own qualified engineers anymore or at this point in time to run such an important institution like Zesco. Bonse balifwa or working elsewhere outside Zambia. Can you imagine ba PF running a bank, can that bank survive? That’s exactly what this government of under fives are doing; try and error type of management.
One thing you should remember is when ZESCO is sold as a whole the tarriffs will double for a private company to make profit…they best way forward is unbundling it; let it concentrate on Generation and Distribution…then let the private sector handle the retail side of it; that way there will be more competition.
@Jay Jay, those of us who grew up in the hey days witnessed what you are advocating. Municipalities employed engineers, water and civil engineers and construction guys because they used to get water and electricity wholesale from companies like ZESCO and the water distributors. Alas, then the incompetence of appointing relatives and girlfriends/boyfriends soon made it impossible for these municipalities to manage these relationships. This is why we are where we are. Going back to unbundling will not work unless we privatize the whole damn thing. We always respect foreigners more than ourselves.
@Kalok – that time the councils would do it as the population was manageable for them..all countries started from there; they only problem with Zambia is governance and leadership; there are specialist energy companies in Europe who do this even in Zambia if its profitable its doable.
PF must just admit that they have failed.
It was not too long ago when PF were stranded as to what to do with that Euro bond money. Why couldn’t they use a tiny bit of that to put up at least one solar farm that would have helped increase the country’s electricity generation capacity? Better yet, if they had no good ideas as to what to do with the money, they should have left it untouched to await the germination of a brighter idea. Instead, they decided to feast on it, throwing and smearing a bit of it at and on everything imaginable; thinking they were, that way, crafting a legacy never to be matched in the history of Zambia! How sad, the money is now gone, the country is broke; and our problems have quadrupled!
Good point with regard to the solar farm. Such a statement coming from Zesco spokesperson makes very sad reading. This is someone who should be talking about about the initiatives being employed by the power utility company to increase electricity generation. Instead, he is encouraging customers to take potential income for Zesco and invest it elsewhere. That’s rather dull.
Generators are being banned in Nigeria for causing pollution
Global warming! Are we that desperate – taking the country back to the stone age era?
Actually, privatization should not be the only solution. National security is one reason why I’d not support the (full) privatization idea. Unbundling, Yes, certainly, like any big problem, it has to be splitted into manageable components. Next, we have to set clear rules, goals and verifiable targets for every quarter. I’m very embarrassed with ZESCO, currently they can’t win even as a monopoly, Damn! The minister in charge must tell the nation what they have done with the borrowed Eurobond money and promise what they will concretely achieve say in one or two coming years to deal specifically with this growing threat to national security. Enough is enough people, we cannot continue living based on instincts. Picture Zambia 10 years from now, what will be the opportunities for the…
Its irelevant to talk of national when all the Zamtel servers are managed and only overseen by the Chines.
Picture Zambia 10 years from now, what will be the opportunities for the youth? How will this country compete in the world? If we really want, we can lead by example in the region and on the continent by taking necessary steps one at a time.
This is like missing a penalty kick in a crucial Wold Cup final. How do we survive such ineptitude?
End of an era,
Once the powerhouse of Southern Africa and boasting the lowest electricity tariff in the world, all gone to the dogs!
How is this possible?
Who has been monitoring the decline?
Lowest due to it being subsidized…lesson here dont subsidise consumption. Lazy Lungu chickened out last year…
The elephant in the room is the Zambian mindset. We had a functioning local government system complete with relationships with wholesale electricity and utilities. Then the useless nepotism, tribalism and racism swept over the nation in its mediocre entirety and resulted in what we are witnessing. Companies like ZESCO curled inwards but then became cash cows for politicians, donating investment funds to frivolous political clown shows. Hydro is renewable and yet we have neglected places with abundant potential and hounded professionals’ freethinking off their perch! Awe mwe! Nindo kansi mufwaya mwebakifita mwe!??
We should be less trusting and more skeptical. These PF characters are more vacuous than we think.
You know when there is no hope for the country when the monopoly provider of electricity as you to buy a gen set.
This kind of thinking can not be separated from the outcome of a 5-day black out.
Only in ZED where the seller can start enticing the buyers to buy competing products. We need to have a national discussion this cannot be normal in any way.
The matter of the Euro-bond should be in the public domain. Available for anyone to ‘see’ how it was carved out. More importantly, on the ZESCO issue, there should be a breakdown of monies allocated, exactly how they were spent and what the benefits have been. You would think this would a straight forward process to present to the nation. But all responsible for the Euro-bond are mute. This is free information for people (taxpayers, producers) who will be paying it back and need to have without question.
Everyone should start a campaign over the bond. MP’s are useless, NGO’s are quiet – I have only read the UPND demands for this from time to time – which have been ignored. There is need for everyone to SHOUT and exert pressure over the Euro-bond. Its amazing how this govt. is allowed…
… to get away with matters
Foolish can someone manage with high cost of fuel per liter
DUNUNA REVERSE WITH PF AND LUNGU.
ZESCO must lead the way in strategizing around alternative energies. It is strange for ZESCO to advise clients to use generators without proper consultations. Failure by ZESCO has caused all this mess. It is necessary for ZESCO to lead the way by devising a project proposal to identify the needs and offer workable solutions. The generator is not a panacea. A case by case study or category by category solution would be more convenient. generator generator generator!!! Which model are you talking about? Is petrol propelled? is it diesel propelled? Can’t solar co-exist with generator? Can ZESCO procure huge quantiy for offloading to clients on first come first serve basis?
ZESCO must lead the way in strategizing around alternative energies. It is strange for ZESCO to advise clients to use generators without proper consultations. Failure by ZESCO has caused all this mess. It is necessary for ZESCO to lead the way by devising a project proposal to identify the needs and offer workable solutions. The generator is not a panacea. A case by case study or category by category solution would be more convenient. generator generator generator!!! Which model are you talking about? Is petrol propelled? is it diesel propelled? Can’t solar co-exist with generator? Can ZESCO procure huge quantify for offloading to clients on first come first serve basis?