POWER CRISIS: Zim braces up for dark Christmas

As a crippling shortage of electricity continues exposing the dangerous failure of southern African leadership,South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, says it is battling its own serious electricity shortfall and is therefore not in a position to rescue Zimbabwe.

The Citizen newspaper in South Africa reports that Zimbabweans must brace themselves for a dark Christmas following an instruction to shut down Kariba South hydro-electric power station due to a rapidly declining water level.

Zimbabwe cannot import more power from South Africa.

Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha is quoted as saying although the South African power utility has a supply contract with Zimbabwe, it cannot provide more electricity than it does now because “Eskom does not have any access to capacity”.

Zimbabwe has for years been battling power shortages due to reduced power generation.

This has mainly been attributed to obsolete power generation equipment.

Zimbabwe and Zambia share the same dam for electricity generation, but Zambia has no energy crisis.

Zwnews/ Newshawks