ACTING Minister of Health Douglas Syakalima says 427 health facilities will benefit from the USD$6.8 million Six solar project funded by the Global Fund.
ZANIS reports that speaking when he launched the Solar for Health (S4H) and Joint SDG-Energy Transition projects today, Mr Syakalima said the launch will further strengthen the country’s health system and also reduce carbon footprint in the health sector.
Mr Syakalima said he was delighted that the solar project was being launched together with the S4H project which will provide capacity in technical operations of solar systems at provincial and district level so as to ensure sustainability.
He said the solar for health initiative will primarily focus on health centers and health posts which are the backbone of healthcare access for millions of Zambians.
Mr Syakalima thanked the Global Fund for supplementing governments efforts in providing stable and reliable energy to government institutions.
And speaking earlier, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative James Wakiaga who read the speech on behalf of the United Nations Resident Coordinator Beatrice Mutali, said the project has come at the right time.
Ms Mutali notes that the UN is working to support the government in formulating strategic short, medium and long term measures for addressing the energy crisis that has had adversely impacted Zambia’s economy.
She said Zambia was faced with a severe energy crisis exacerbated by the prolonged drought experienced last year.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Energy Acting Director Micheal Mulasikwanda said load shedding has affected the operations of key sectors such as health and education.
Mr Mulasikwanda said many health facilities are struggling to store vaccines, blood and operate lifesaving health equipment.
He said the solar project is critical in addressing hydro power gaps.
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Meanwhile, net-metering still remains a talking point, which if harnessed could potentially add circa 500MW to the grid.
And now ZESCO says there are some people who have installed inveters which are not compatible with ZESCO net metering equipment, but why did you not specify from the beginning. You were busy marketing your net metering minus giving details, people buy solar equipment and you now say – not compatible. If this was as important, it should have come out very prominently from the beginning
The problem with UPND is too much lies and empty promises…6 months from now ask them what happened to the same project and they will have no answers….and they will still blame PF…….
UPND is just a missed call full of self praise but very little going on on the ground, what will save them in 2026 is just the fragmented and disorganised opposition which has no tangible plan ever floated to the zambian people. An opposition party is given clearance by the Police to hold a rally in Linda compound and they go and talk about Edgar Lungu instead of saying we will improve your lives and this is HOW we will do it.