‘Zambia not alone,’ Govt claims 15 SADC countries are in electricity generation deficit

Green Economy and Environment Minister, Mike Mposha, has claimed that 15 countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region are experiencing power deficit due to poor rainfall.

Mposha said these countries had been affected with poor rainfall patterns for the last two years which had seen the poor generation of electricity among the 15-member countries.

He said this during a church service at Kaunda Square’s Reformed Church of Zambia (RCZ).

“Out of the 15 countries in the SADC region, only Angola, Tanzania and Mozambique have a bit of energy surplus for their demand,” Mposha said.

Read more: Imported electricity to constitute 20% of total available power for one year —ZESCO

He stated that out of the 70 000 megawatts installed capacity of electricity, the region had suffered a deficit of more than 10 000 megawatts which had forced many countries in the SADC region to start importing power from other countries.

He regretted that unfortunately importation of power had proved to be a challenge because the neighbouring countries that were supposed to export power to Zambia were also in an energy crisis.

Mposha further said that government was planning to set up an interconnector that would enable it to import power from Angola as it was the closest neighbour that had a surplus of electricity.

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