UPND Chairperson for Energy Engineer Charles Kaisala has called on those still criticizing government for load shedding to stop doing so as this was an issue that has existed long before the party got into power.
Speaking during a press briefing in Lusaka, Mr Kaisala said it was surprising that a lot of people were putting a blame on the UPND government over load shedding when the previous governments failed to resolve the problem.
He said it was unfortunate that there are many people talking about the issue of load shedding without providing solutions.
Mr. Kaisala said that there were measures that the previous regimes were supposed to undertake to prevent the current deficit had had neglected to so because they did not know how to manage the crisis.
Mr Kaisala said the UPND Administration was nonetheless committed to ensuring that load shedding came to an end.
He said President Hakainde Hichilema had already shown the commitment of addressing the power deficit by traveling around the world where he has been signing various memorandum of understandings on investment in energy.
Mr Kaisala said the government had as promised in their party manifesto, delivered to Zambians through the deals that the head of State has signed in United Arab Emirates of over $2billion dollars which is to be injected in the energy sector.
And Mr Kaisala said there was need to restructure ZESCO to help revamp it as government was working at finding solutions to the current energy problems.
He advised government that among the many agent solutions, was the restructuring of the debt that Zesco had that was accumulated by the previous administration.
“We are a listening government which is proactive and are working hard to end load-sheading as seen in our party manifesto with solutions to the many problems,” he said
Mr. Kaisala reminded that the period that load-shedding took effect was less than a month but that government had already undertaken a lot of measures to help consumers have power at all time.
He has also advised the citizens to switch and serve to help the wastage of the power that is on high demand by those that operate small businesses such as barbershops and saloons among the many.