By SILUMESI MALUMO
LOAD SHEDDING will end in December this year as part of Zesco’sstrategic plan on load management, company corporate affairs manager John Kunda has said.
Zambia Republic Party (ZRP) president, Wright Musoma warned that the prolonged load shedding might be a ploy to decampaign the government.
Mr Musoma said it was unacceptable to be having long hours of blackouts when the water levels had significantly improved at Lake Kariba Dam.
Dr Kunda however in said in an interview that “recently Zesco Managing Director Victor Mundende launched the Weather Induced Power Deficit of 2019 (WIPOD 19) as a strategic crisis management tool which demonstrates a predictable agenda as we draw towards zero load shedding.”
And Mr Musoma said President Edgar Lungu must keep an eye on Zescobecause the continued prolonged power outages is going to destroy his popularity and that of the party.
Mr Musoma said people were losing confidence in the ruling party because of this situation as their businesses were negatively affected.
Mr Musoma said President Lungu should know that people can use Zescowhich was a strategic institution to de-campaign him.
He said the long hours of power outages were very worrying and something must be done to save popularity of the party and the Head of State.
“I want to begin to say that we want to advise the PF government to keep its eye on Zesco otherwise not doing that is likely to spell doom. Going by the kind of load shedding we are experiencing is very worrying. Zesco can be one institution that can be used to destroy Government and its people. People who are against Government can use Zesco to create artificial outage in places where the ruling party enjoys massive support. So as ZRP we are very concerned with these kind of outages because they are even more than we experienced when water levels were too low.
“We are not saying that Kariba dam is full according to engineers they have explained but load shedding going even up to 10 hours on daily basis is very unacceptable,” Mr Musoma said.
He said it was prudent that investigations were instituted to find out why such was happening because if this continued President Lungu would lose the trust of the Zambian people.
He said power outage must be normal at least for four hours but not the kind of load shedding the country was facing.
Mr Musoma said he was receiving a lot of reports from people complaining about the abnormal power outages hence the need for the Head of State to pay attention on the matter.
And Dr Kunda the load management plan was structured that in level six in the month of April load shedding would be 20 to 24 hours, level five month of May and June 16 to 20 hours, level four month of July12 to 16 hours, and level three month of August 8 to 12 hours.
He further said level two in month of September and October load shedding would be 4 to 8 hours, level 1 in the month November it would be 1 to 4 Hours and December there would be zero load shedding.
“That is how load shedding is predicted to go down. Plan accordingly. We are in level 3 of load management. Remember we are not yet out of the crisis,” he said.
