via Power crisis: Minister blames ‘lying’ Met Dept – New Zimbabwe 15/10/2015
THE country’s meteorological department should not be trusted because it lied to government leading to the failure to prepare for the current power supply crisis, Energy Minister Samuel Undenge has said.
Undenge told journalists Thursday that his ministry would no longer trust the met-office following the unprecedented drop in water levels at Kariba Dam which has led to poor generation capacity.
“We are all aware of the problems with water levels at Kariba Dam,” said the minister.
“Weather forecasts had told us that there will be enough rains to fill the dam and therefore maintain our power generation levels early this year.
“We only realised in April that we had been lied to by the met-office. They had seen mist and told us it was rain.”
He added: “My department has become sceptical of the met-office and we will henceforth take whatever they say with a big pinch of salt.”
Undenge said government had deliberately maintained generation capacity during the winter season against advise in order to keep people warm but then agreed to reduce as water levels went dangerously much lower.
The Energy Minister has come under heavy public attack for failing to come up with stop-gap measures to address the crisis.
He was however backed by President Robert Mugabe who recently told complaining Zimbabweans that; “Undenge haagaye magetsi (Undenge does not generate electricity)”.
Mugabe, a few weeks ago, also suggested that industry operates at night to circumvent the power crisis.
The energy ministry has also ordered military barracks and other cantonment areas to be switched of in order to serve power.
COMMENTS
pple should learn to accept our shortcomigs so that we be corrected not this mery go round we are witessing here. minster thisis the highestlevel of failure
What a dreadful mind-set this minister has.
I doubt the Met office “lied” to the government. They might have presented their best forecast of an inexact science. The minister should hold himself responsible for the consequences as he decided to ignore conflicting advice and go with the Met office preferring to short term option of keeping people warm. He made the decision, he made the choice and now he wants to blame someone else.
The man is a village idiot. It is not weather forecasting that tells you that the level of water flowing down the Zambesi is less than is needed to maintain the water level in Kariba. It is simple observation of the rainfall in Zambia. What an idiot, and he should be fired for be stupid enough to bring a corrupt useless political party into further disrepute.
The blame game!!
“I am NOT the one!” Classic.
What he says is rubbish because the state of the lake would have been obvious way back in April-May
This demonstrates hoe inept our Ministers are. For 35 years this government has failed to plan for a growing population and increase in consumption, because all they have been doing is listen to the Met forecasts. They should simply look at the New York subway, the London tube, the Japanese rail system to learn that visionaries planned those systems over a hundred years ago when their populations were a small fraction of what they are today; but now those systems are transporting millions of people per day. If this government had planned 35 years ago for proper means of power supply to meet increased demand we wouldn’t be where we are today. To hear a minister blaming the met for his ministry’s failure to plan is simply bizarre to put it mildly. All they know is to fill their pockets looting. There doesn’t seem to be one single minister in ZANU who knows about planning for the future, all those useless PhDs!
This demonstrates how inept our Ministers are. For 35 years this government has failed to plan for a growing population and increase in consumption, because all they have been doing is listen to the Met forecasts. They should simply look at the New York subway, the London tube, the Japanese rail system to learn that visionaries planned those systems over a hundred years ago when their populations were a small fraction of what they are today; but now those systems are transporting millions of people per day. If this government had planned 35 years ago for proper means of power supply to meet increased demand we wouldn’t be where we are today. To hear a minister blaming the met for his ministry’s failure to plan is simply bizarre to put it mildly. All they know is to fill their pockets looting. There doesn’t seem to be one single minister in ZANU who knows about planning for the future, all those useless PhDs!
I think I have said before that long, long (late 60’s) I looked after the CAPCO telemetry system that daily measured water levels of rivers feeding the Zamezi in Zambia. So they would have known there were reduced inflows way back in March-April this year.
And as people have said, its mainly rain in Zambia, very little from Zimbabwe.
What a monumental cockup! As usual
Where is the saving in consumption of ZESA if instead of working in the day time you are forced to work the same amount at night //GO–GO NOW
If I recall correctly, the highest ever local inflow into Kariba was in 1976/7 and this represented 34% of the total, most of which comes from the Barotse