THE incessant power cuts being experienced across the
country have hit the informal sector hardest with players now spending long
hours or days without production.
The power utility, Zesa, is implementing a tight load
shedding regime that has seen some places going for up to 15 hours without
power. This is because of subdued power generation at the country’s main
stations in Hwange and Kariba.
Bulawayo Chamber of SMEs chairperson, Mr Energy Majazi,
said power cuts were now threatening livelihoods of their members as production
has automatically come down.
“We have been hit hard my brother. This is where we get our
day to day fares for transport and our children who go to school. We are living
from hand to mouth and now we are just like dogs that eat once a day in the
evening. The situation is critical because of these power cuts,” he said.
“All businesses are affected including brick moulders
because there is water rationing. We can say 95 percent of the people in the
informal sector are affected except the ones doing buying and selling from
outside.”
Mr Majazi said their members in the manufacturing sector,
particularly those in the furniture and clothing sectors, were the worst
affected as they used electric machinery.
Given the economic challenges, he said, investing in solar
and generators was also a mammoth task.
Mr Majazi said SMEs were not happy with the situation as
they will still be required to pay taxes to Government and rentals to property
owners despite failure to produce due to power cuts.
The secretary general of the Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal
Economy Associations, Mr Wisborn Malaya, also implored Government to speed up
measures to improve power generation and supply.
“As Government is addressing the issue of electricity
generation, may they speed up the process of addressing the supply side because
electricity is very key to production,” said Mr Malaya.
Zimbabwe has been experiencing load shedding outside the
official schedule owing to a technical fault at Hwange power station and
reduced electricity production due to low water levels at Kariba. However, Zesa
has pledged to add 160MW of electricity to the national grid this week
following the successful restoration of unit 5 at Hwange Power Station.
The power utility has been implementing stage two of load
shedding, mainly in residential areas where the informal sector is based.
Informal business operators have also said they were losing customers because
of unstable load shedding timetables.
“Power cuts are no longer following the given schedule.
They can cut power anytime which inconveniences our
business. For instance yesterday I ended up losing many customers when power
was unexpectedly cut,” said Mr Mbongeni Moyo, who operates a barber shop.
A game shop owner, who declined to be identified, also said
power cuts had reduced his profits.
With low levels of investment in the private sector and
renewable energy projects, Zesa remains the sole generator and supplier of
electricity in the country.
Zimbabwe has a higher proportion of informal sector players
with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) indicating, in one of its reports,
that more 60 percent of Zimbabwe’s economy is informal. Herald
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