Zimbabwe: Power Cuts Deepen Economic Crisis

The Zimbabwean economy is losing trillions of dollars through power outages, which intensified this week and could reach alarming levels in the next few months, industry players and commentators said.

The country plunged into a near-national blackout last week, hardly two months after two nationwide blackouts hit the country in January after systems disturbances on common electricity grid linking most of southern African countries.
The systems disturbance had also plunged Zambia and parts of Botswana into darkness.

However, Zimbabwe’s electricity woes have been more pronounced than those of its neighbours, including South Africa, which recently introduced load shedding due to increasing power demand spurred by a growing economy.

Industry experts said at least 20 hours of production time was being lost every week due to power outages since January.

Hardest hit are sectors like mining and agriculture, which have both suffered immensely from a nine-year economic recession ravaging the country.

AllAfrica