Zambia party to protest outages

2008-03-03 21:10

Lusaka - Zambia's main opposition party announced on Monday that it will stage nationwide demonstrations at the end of this month in protest against unprecedented power outages in the country.

Patriotic Front (PF) leader Michael Sata said his party has called the "mass demonstrations" in order to show displeasure over government's failure to solve the electricity crisis.

"We are going to stage the demonstrations throughout the country if government does not solve the problem in the next three weeks," Sata said.

"It will be peaceful demonstrations."

Zambia, like many other southern African countries, has recently been experiencing unprecedented power shortages that have led to rationing while industries have also been badly affected.

Zambia's government has condemned the planned demonstrations saying they were not justified because the power outages have affected the entire region.

"What we need now are suggestions on how to resolve the crisis as opposed to demonstrations," Information Minister Mike Mulongoti told state radio.

The PF enjoys massive support in most urban areas, especially among the uneducated in densely populated slums.

About 400 copper miners were temporarily trapped underground in January following a countrywide power black-out.

Zambia, which generated its electricity from three hydro-electric power plants, one of which is currently out of operation, imports power from its northern neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo, to meet shortages.

Chinese experts are currently helping to upgrade Zambia's power generation capacity which stands at around 1 000 megawatts.

The country needs to increase output to about 4 500 megawatts by 2010.

Zambia used to export power to east Africa, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

- AFP