OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 8.30am.
ZIMBABWE’s state-owned electricity supplier has warned of imminent power cuts and said that power rationing may have to be implemented as it has fallen behind on repayments for foreign-supplied power.
A spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, Joshua Chifamba, said that the six-week shortage of diesel which has stricken Zimbabwe is also cutting down power output at ZESA’s largest power producer, the coal-burning Hwange station.
Chifamba said, however, that the Authhority will resort to power cuts only as qa last resort, and that all efforts are being made to avoid such a course of action.
ZESA has been unable to meet repayments on its debt backlog of Z$12-billion, Chifamba admitted, and added that power to residential areas during peak supply times may be interrupted.
Power cuts can be linked to the shortage of diesel in the country, as the fuel is used a “flame stabiliser” in Hwange’s furnaces.
According to Chifamba, diesel is pumped into the furnaces when fires burn low thereby boosting the flames.
The announcement is the latest setback to the Zimbabwean economy, already staggering under critically scarce foreign reserves that have prevented i9t from making debt repayments.
International oil companies stopped supplying the state-owned National Oil Company of Zimbabwe with fuel in early December because of a backlog on debts.
ZESA imports 55 percent of its power from utilities in South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
ZESA executives last week told Zimbabwean private sector heads that payments on a US$22 million rescheduled debt to South Africa’s Eskom, Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa system and the DRC’s SNEL because have fallen behind because of the absence of foreign currency.
A warning that food supplies are being threatened due to the diesel shortage was made earlier in the week by the country’s top indiustrialists, who said that the industrial sector is “in panic”.
Chifamba said that plans for power cuts are a prepatory measure and that schedules have been designed to minimise disruptions in the economy.
He said that unless the situation becomes very serious, maximum demand customers will not be disconnected.
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