ZESCO power outage divided views

Mon, 28 Nov 2016 18:37:00 +0000

Dear Editor,

THE UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema may have lost at his fifth attempt as Zambia’s president but that has not stopped him dispensing advice.

A suggestion that a fault caused by lightning on the 330kv

transmission line from Kabwe to Serenje , in his view, was due to incompetence by alleged PF cadres at ZESCO sparked a row and led to a bold denunciation of the man himself (“PF roasts HH over Zesco power cut remarks”, Daily Nation, November 26, 2016).

Zambia was still reeling from the latest power outage that paralyzed five provinces, Eastern, Luapula, Northern, Muchinga and some parts of Central province.

This was as a consequence largely ZESCO’s shortcomings in backup transmission infrastructure.  Though there is a technical element to the tsunami-like power outage, a complex set of financial implications and natural calamity reasons is seen as being behind the unprecedented power blackout. Complexity did not seem to bother the UPND leader and he thought he had the answer.

He decided to mislead the public, claiming that the fault was not caused by an act of God but by incompetence of alleged PF cadres at ZESCO.

The ruling party initially ignored his comments but finally after ZESCO engineers had managed to repair the 10km damaged power line and restore the power to affected regions the PF deputy spokesperson Frank Bwalya spoke up.  He unleashed criticism of Hichilema that many would not have dared make or imagine.

The PF deputy spokesperson accused Hichilema of grand-standing at every auspicious occasion to derive cheap political mileage from a national misfortune and that the comments have indeed diminished his status and credibility as an opposition leader to be taken seriously and be voted into State House come 2021.

 The UPND leader, though, it seems, does not take kindly to being ticked off has let his cadres do the talking.

In response to PF’s verbal bashing the UPND youth leadership released a statement castigating the PF deputy spokesperson.

However, Hichilema’s comments caused many Zambians to reflect on ZESCO’s power transmission alternative connectivity to Pensulo power substation.

Some proposed that apart from the existing Kabwe to Serenje power link, another direct link between Lusaka and Serenje must be reviewed and considered.

The resulting triangular network will ensure that availability of power is guaranteed in the affected 5 provinces regardless of a power transmission outage in any of the three links i.e. between Lusaka and Kabwe, or between Kabwe and Serenje, or between Lusaka and Serenje.

For clarity’s sake, the ZESCO substations involved in this proposed triangular network include Leopards Hill power substation in Lusaka, Kabwe power substation in Kabwe and Pensulo power substation in Serenje.

Others, meanwhile, acknowledged that Hichilema had a point to some extent, that ZESCO’s high level competence was a fiction.

All this happened as David Mabumba was settling in to his role as Energy Minister.

Now that an alternative power transmission link to Serenje has been suggested, he knows that one of his jobs is to prove Hichilema wrong.

Mubanga Luchembe,

LUSAKA