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But ZESCO Director of Corporate Affairs and Business Development Betsy Phiri has attributed the outages to a mechanical fault at Kariba North Bank and Kafue Gorge hydropower stations.
EPCCI President Thomas Mtongo has also expressed fears that the continuous shortages if not properly addressed will have negative impact on the economic performance of the country.
Mr. Mtonga said despite Eastern Province not been a heavily industrialised province the outages have affected productive in the factories operating in the province.
ZANIS reports that the EPCCI President said this in an interview in Chipata today.
He cited milling companies, bakeries, breweries, ginnery, the commercial and water sectors as some of the industries that have been badly affected.
Mr. Mtonga disclosed that water supply in Chipata has been greatly affected as the water and Sewerage Company can no longer pump the required amounts of water due to constant power outages.
He further called on ZESCO to come up with an efficient and well-managed programme of load shedding so as not to disrupt key activities in the country’s economy.
He expressed concern at the failure by ZESCO to inform the nation on time that it will be carrying out some load shedding for people to be aware and proper adequately for the interruption period.
Mr. Mtongo added that if the current situation continues, there is likelihood that the cost of doing business in parts of the country will rise and efficiency in many business activities will be compromised.
Eastern province has in the last five days been experiencing power outages which has disturbed the operations of many businesses.
Random survey carried by ZANIS has revealed that production for businesses as bakeries and ginneries have reduced while butcheries, dairy and fresh products have gone bad.
However, ZESCO Director of Corporate Affairs and Business Development Betsy Phiri has attributed the outages to a mechanical fault at Kariba North Bank and Kafue Gorge hydropower stations.
Ms. Phiri has however apologised to its customers for the unplanned load shedding and has promised that engineers are currently working on the faults and power supply will normalise.
