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Report: SA cuts power to Zim
05/02/2006 10:34 - (SA)
Harare - An official newspaper in Zimbabwe claimed on Sunday that South Africa's main power company had temporarily switched off power to Zimbabwe in a move likely to worsen power outages across the country.
There's been no confirmation of the report from the company, South Africa's Eskom.
Almost 40% of Zimbabwe's electricity supply is imported from regional suppliers in South Africa, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
A senior official in the Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Commission (ZERC) told the Sunday Mail that "forced outages" in the supply from South Africa, as well as inadequate supplies of coal to power Zimbabwe's main Hwange power station, had put supplies "under serious threat".
"The commission has been advised by the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission Company that the security of supply is under serious threat due to inadequate supply of coal at Hwange Power Station and unavailability of imports from Eskom," Mavis Chidzonga, the commissioner general of ZERC told the paper.
The problem has been worsened by the Zimbabwe electricity authority's inability to settle its debts with its major coal supplier and with the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) which transports the coal.
Chidzonga said Zimbabwe would now try to import supplies form its northern neighbour, Zambia.
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