The issue of Blackouts has dominated news in the country for many years. I remember three if not four years ago Kapito and his friends forced the power generating and supplying body, ESCOM, to change its business slogan from “power all day every day” to towards power everyday.
There have been different views on the causes of blackouts. Others think its due to incompetence by ESCOM management. Others think its political interference by the ruling party. ESCOM has blamed Monkeys, Debris and Low Water levels in the Shire river. But what is the problem?
Honestly I think the blackouts are as a result of two things. Firstly as a country, we did not make provisions for population growth. The equipment being used by ESCOM now is the same that was being used when the population was five million and electricity was only accessed by few people in the cities. Now the demand for power has tremendously increased and we expect the same machinery to satisfy the increased demand?
Secondly, its on climate change. As a country we didn’t make provisions in our planning on climate change. We thought shire river will continue to have the same levels of water all the time.
WAY FORWARD.
Just as explained above,the challenge ESCOM is having is capacity to satisfy the ever increasing demand. Its high time government tried to renegotiate the Zambezi power deal in the interim whilst trying to fast track the proposed Kammwamba project.
CONCLUSION
Demonstrations or no demonstrations, ESCOM wont improve on blackouts using the same infrastructure.