Zambia has been plunged into darkness after a blackout affected almost the entire country.
The blackout was caused by faulty equipment and that only the Southern and Western provinces – supplied by a hydroelectric power plant at the Victoria Falls – were unaffected, the country’s Energy Minister Dora Siliya said in a statement on Facebook.
It is the second blackout to hit the country in under two weeks after a technical fault caused an outage on December 11.
Zambia – a hydroelectric-dependent country – has had erratic rainfall.
The country has suffered power shortages because of a searing drought as levels in the Kariba dam – which provides much of the nation’s electricity – drop.
The rainfall shortages have left some reservoir water levels too low, resulting in load shedding – as a result of which the government says it has had to impose planned power cuts – sometimes lasting eight to 14 hours a day.
Zambia had one of Africa’s fastest growing economies – expanding on average 7% annually over the past five years – driven by mining of its huge copper and cobalt reserves.
But global prices for minerals have dropped, coinciding with low rainfall and power cuts. On top of that, Zambia’s local currency, the kwacha, has recently tumbled against the US dollar. Many businesses cannot absorb such unplanned costs.
Power cuts typically add 40% to businesses’ costs in emerging economies, the World Bank estimates.
Analysts say that Zambia’s – and sub-Saharan Africa’s – energy crisis is caused by a lack of planning, a lack of investment as a result of low tariffs, prevarication by politicians and poor management of resources.
