ZESCO requested to upgrade Mangango mini hydro

ZESCO requested to upgrade Mangango mini hydro

Kaoma, March 7, ZANIS ——-Government has requested ZESCO management in the province to upgrade the 17 kilowatts mini hydro power supply in Mangango mission hospital that was built in the early 1960s.

Western Province Permanent Secretary, Mr Emmanuel Mwamba who toured the facility constructed across the Luena River said there is urgent need to revamp the hydro power station so that the health personnel could easily use the machinery that uses power appropriately.

Mr Mwamba acknowledged that the hydro power station needed modern technology in order to generate a three phase power capacity that would enable government workers to benefit from the power that was left long ago by the missionaries that opened Mangango mission hospital in 1943.

He said the mini hydro power station at the mission should be a matter of priority so that the intermittent power outages being experienced in the country could be minimized as Mangango constituency is earmarked to be connected to the main power grid under the World Bank funded power project.

Mr Mwamba said that the PF government was in a hurry to uplift the living standards of the people especially in rural areas. 

And Sister – In- charge, Prisca Matenga appealed to government through the Permanent Secretary’s office to ensure that a doctor is sent to Mangango mission hospital as the health institution is being run by a medical licentiate adding that the hospital caters for a population of over 70, 000 people.

Sister Matenga further said there was need to connect the mission to the national grid lines as people in the surrounding communities were forced to bury their dead immediately due to lack of power at the mortuary.

She also said that the X-ray machine at the mission is now obsolete as it lived its usefulness and that there was need to equip the hospital with a new one that could service the people properly.

Sister Matenga thanked the Permanent Secretary as a government representative for visiting the mission hospital in order to learn the difficulties being faced by health personnel at the institution.