malvernmugadzikwa
Theresa Mhazo
Small to Medium Enterprises are bearing the brunt of increased load shedding being experienced in the country as they operate from locations where power curtailments have been most severe; an industry executive has said.
Zimbabwe has been experiencing reduced supply of electricity for months, but the situation worsened this week with power supplier, Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), announcing that there will be “increased load curtailment from the 24th of September 2022”.
“This is due to technical challenges being experienced at our Kariba and Hwange Power Stations as well as import constraints,” said ZETDC in a notice to customers on Saturday.
Further, on Tuesday the country experienced a nationwide power outage “due to an abrupt system disturbance”.
Such power outages will hit the economy hard with SMEs likely to be the most affected.
Speaking during an interview on CapitalkFM on Tuesday, SME Association of Zimbabwe director, Farai Mutambanengwe, said the sector is affected “severely” because most SMEs, especially the productive ones are located outside the CBD where there is inconsistent supply of electricity.
Mutambanengwe said most suburbs and industrial areas are the most affected by load shedding which forces players to resort to “very expensive” alternative sources of power to keep production running.
However, alternative sources of power are very expensive especially if you are going to power machinery, according to Mutambanengwe.
“You are going to resort to the use of generators and obviously the cost of fuel is very high.”
This leads to rather losses than profits, he added.
“Production has been impacted negatively and this is also at a time, generally the economy is also quite constrained because of what has been happening in terms of high-interest rates,” among other things.
Mutambanengwe went on to say, there have been reports of no electricity for three days and other industries are going on for 12 hours and this is happening during working hours.
He said lack of communication by ZETDC is worsening an already dire situation.
“We need a load shedding timetable to be prepared for what is coming so we can plan how we are going to work.”
Industries are one of the business sectors that support the economy and with the constant load shedding the economy of the country is bound not to fully succeed.
The load shedding problem is a long time and ongoing problem and we need to have a solution by now expressed Mutambanengwe.
In search of solutions, other companies are taking licences to become independent power producers “but still bureaucracy stands in the way of many”.
Meanwhile, Mutambanengwe said load shedding is just the latest in a series of problems affecting SMEs.
“Obviously we have had issues around foreign currency. The foreign currency system is not working properly and really that has been probably a greater concern among issues around access to credit and being unable to borrow because of things around issues of collateral and then obviously issues around very high-interest rates.
“Yes the power situation is big, but it’s one of many for SMEs,” said Mutambanengwe
Bongani Ndlovu