With the country bearing the brunt of an average 19 hours
of daily power load shedding, Zanu PF has said the outages are the design of
God, arguing that nobody else has power over water levels in Kariba Dam.
Speaking at a Zanu PF Masvingo Provincial Coordinating
Committee (PCC) meeting over the weekend, Zanu PF national secretary for
security Lovemore Matuke said people should stop blaming the ruling party on
the current power crisis as they have no capacity to add water into the dam.
“Zanu PF is capable of doing a lot of things but we cannot
add water into Kariba Dam so that we generate adequate electricity.
“God decided to give us little rains so the load shedding
is by God’s design. The government is trying to pull all the strings to make
sure that we source electricity from our neighbours Mozambique and South
Africa,” said Matuke.
South Africa’s power utility Eskom and Mozambique’s Cabbora
Bassa have discontinued supplying Zimbabwe with electricity owing to millions
in unpaid debts and the government says it has since paid $10 million to Eskom.
Government says it cannot supply adequate electricity to
households and industry partly because the Kariba hydro power station is
operating below capacity due to low water levels in the dam.
Critics have however dismissed this claim, saying the
neighbouring Zambia does not suffer as much load shedding despite relying on
the same station for much of its power requirements.
They blame government profligacy and the resultant failure
to pay for supplementary power imports from neighbouring countries. Tell
Zimbabwe
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