Minister of Energy, Peter Kapala, says critical institutions such as hospitals and the Lusaka Water are still being exempted from load-shading, as directed by President Hakainde Hichilema.
Mr. Kapala said this when he gave a ministerial statement in parliament today, to clarify the ZESCO Lusaka schedule released on 1st July, 2024, which indicated that Group G, where the critical institutions fall under, was on 8 to 20hrs load-shading schedule.
But Mr. Kapala said Hospitals and the Lusaka Water were separated from the residentials that fall in Group G and that the load-shading schedule shared only applies to residentials.
“In instances where hospitals have experienced power outages, such occurrences are due to technical issues or vandalism,” said Mr. Kapala
He therefore directed ZESCO to quickly reclassify the critical institutions to remove the ambiguity.
And Mr. Kapala admitted that ZESCO has had difficulties in managing the load-shading schedule due to factors such as shift in load patterns and clients taking long to report a fault, due to failure to distinguish faults from normal load-shading.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kapala says ZESCO has engaged a group of youths, who have made intentions to protest against load-shading, on a tour of the key hydro power plants, to appreciate the depth of the problem.
He was responding to Pemba Member of Parliament, Lameck Hamwaata, who wanted t to know what government will do to those intending to protest against load-shading.
By Eva Hatontola
