Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti said that the current electricity crisis has exposed ZANU PF’s ineptitude in dealing with the challenges facing the country.
Zimbabweans are enduring at least 18 hours without electricity a day, with little hope that the problem will be fixed anytime soon.
Biti said the power shortages can be addressed through imports, the issuance of licences to Independent Power Producers (IPPs), and fast-tracking the commissioning of new Units at Hwange Thermal Power Station, among other measures. Said Biti:
The power situation has exposed the cluelessness and vacuousness of the regime.
That the regime can’t find an urgent solution to such an obvious crisis is beyond belief.
1) Increase urgent power imports, 2)Issue urgent IPP licenses, 3) Fast trek Hwange Units 7 and 8, 4) Invest in renewable energy particularly Solar and the Manicaland hydro, 5) Work on fresh power generation particularly Batoka, 6) Work on transmission, 7) Deal with Demand Side Management, 8) Converge and professionalize ZESA units, 9) Attend to rural electrification.
Biti said the 2023 national budget growth projection of 3.8% is not attainable as it is based on an assumption of normal energy supply.
He also criticised President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s plan to disconnect households from the national electricity grid in response to the energy crisis.
Writing in his weekly opinion article published in The Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said:
We have a blueprint that targets households to run on solar, so we remove them from the national grid.
In government, we are already incorporating solar systems in packages that public servants enjoy.
Such employer-assisted interventions, across the sectors, will see us speedily migrating more households to solar.