Herald Reporter

Zesa is not load-shedding, but is having to stretch manpower and resources to cope with the growing number of faults seen in rainy seasons, mainly falling poles, trees falling on overhead cables, water seeping into underground cables and lightning striking critical equipment.

The extra work needed for fixing these faults has caused delays in some repairs.

In Harare, areas seeing faults in the last few days include Warren Park, Kuwadzana, Mufakose, Good Hope, Cold Comfort, Tynwald, parts of Greendale, Strathaven and Marlborough with some areas having gone for more than five days without power, although some faults were fixed within one or two days. Outside Harare, falling pylons near Glendale have seen a chunk of that farming area go dark.

Energy and Power Development Minister Zhemu yesterday dismissed fears of load-shedding, stating that the country was generating enough power and blamed the common rainy season faults.

Zesa is now generating significantly more electricity at Kariba South as water rations are raised following early inflows, and still has its capacity at Hwange Thermal.

The minister urged consumers to contact Zesa’s distribution arm, ZETDC, to make reports of faults or find out the progress of the teams working on these.

ZETDC in its own statement said that during rainy seasons, there was higher prevalence of electrical faults due to falling of electricity poles, trees falling on overhead electricity cables, water seeping into underground cables and lightning striking critical electricity equipment and infrastructure, along with other rain-induced faults.