SW Radio Africa (London)
Tererai Karimakwenda
21 January 2008
Zimbabweans had no electricity or water again this past weekend after nationwide power failures led to the complete shut down of basic services from Saturday evening until Sunday afternoon. This was only 2 weeks after a similar blackout hit the country due to breakdowns at Hwange and Kariba power stations.
State media reported that a major breakdown had occurred but gave no other details. Many shops were forced to close because it was not possible to operate tills or process any transactions. Water supplies, traffic lights and automated teller machines were badly affected.
The problem was eventually attributed to power failures at Eskom in South Africa, which is grappling with power shortages because of increased domestic demands and lack of forward planning by their government. Eskom supplies various neighbouring countries with power, including Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana. South Africans are furious about the power cuts and on Friday commuters near Pretoria set fire to six trains after there had been a two-hour delay due to power outages. Eskom then announced that exports to neighbouring countries would be suspended.
As has been the case with the SADC initiated crisis talks being mediated by President Thabo Mbeki, Zimbabwe's deal with Eskom is not transparent. Peta Thornycroft, the Zimbabwe correspondent for the UK Telegraph newspaper, said Eskom is secretive and unhappy about talking to the press. She said her colleagues in South Africa have never found out how much money Zimbabwe owes to the power company and it is also not clear what proportion of power is exported to Zimbabwe. Thornycroft believes however that Zimbabwe pays Eskom in advance, because the government is no longer trusted to pay debts.
Despite Zimbabwe's chronic power shortages the government recently began exporting electricity to Namibia. The deal involves a loan of US$40 million that Zimbabwe received from Namibia, for repairs to its power stations. But the Namibian power company said that Zimbabwe would not repay the loan with money, but with electricity supplied from the Hwange power station.
Last week Mozambique stopped power supplies to Zimbabwe because of arrears of millions of US dollars.
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