[This report does not necessarily reflect the
views of the United Nations]
HARARE, 12 Oct 2006 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe
has been hit by a double whammy: the
shutdown of a major power station, and
the disruption of electricity
supplies from the neighbouring Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), causing
unprecedented power outages.
The
huge electricity failure plunged hundreds of thousands of homes and
businesses into darkness, and although the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority (ZESA) immediately introduced load-shedding, rationing electricity
to parts of the country, the result is that daily power cuts in some areas
are lasting for up to 10 hours.
On Saturday six generators at Hwange
Thermal Power Station, in Matabeleland
North Province, blew up, causing the
plant to shut down completely and
depriving the national grid of 400mW of
electricity. Two other generators at
the power station have been idle for
some months because a persistent and
acute shortage of foreign currency has
made repairs unaffordable.
ZESA's corporate affairs general manager,
James Maridadi, said in a
statement that the electricity shortage had been
compounded by vandals in
the DRC, who had cut the transmission line of
national power utility Societe
Nationale d'Electric (SNEL), which carries
electricity to Zimbabwe at a
monthly cost of US$715,000, and this had
deprived the grid of another 100mW.
Thermal power stations in the
capital, Harare, another in the second city of
Bulawayo in Matabeleland
North Province, and a third in the Midlands
Province town of Munyati have
been inoperable for some time due to coal
shortages, causing the loss of a
further 200mW.
Zimbabwe used to be self-sufficient in producing fuel for
power generation
and curing tobacco, but the foreign currency shortages have
made it almost
impossible to maintain and replace mining equipment and
railroad stock,
leading to coal-supply problems for industry and forcing
some tobacco
farmers to import coal from neighbouring Mozambique and
Zambia.
Maridadi announced that "ZESA Holdings wishes to inform the
public that
suppressed domestic electricity generation at Hwange Power
Station, coupled
with curtailed imports following a forced transmission line
outage from
SNEL, have resulted in massive load-shedding being undertaken by
the power
utility on a rotation basis since Saturday, 7 October."
On
national state television he told the public that it would take "about
US$30
million to normalise operations at Hwange, and we are in talks with
the
government regarding that issue."
Acquiring both the necessary but scarce
foreign currency and the 500,000
litres of diesel required to kick-start the
Hwange generators may prove
difficult, as the country has been suffering
intermittant fuel supplies for
the past few years.
Electricity is
being sourced from the country's hydroelectric Kariba Power
Station on the
Zambezi River, with additional imports coming from Zambia and
Mozambique.
BLOOD SUPPLIES DRY UP
Inconsistent power supplies
have forced many homes, businesses and
institutions to rely on generators
for electricity. However, a faulty
generator caused a fire at the Harare
headquarters of the National Blood
Services (NBS), spoiling the contents of
14 cold-rooms, several of which
were used to store the nation's blood
bank.
An NBS official told journalists they would immediately stop
supplying blood
to all hospitals in the country and were trying to source
the US$20,000
required for a new generator.
While it is an
increasingly common sight to see people carrying firewood,
one line of
business is doing a roaring trade.
Jennifer Dube, who manages a local
nongovernmental organisation and has been
importing small electrical
generators from China, Dubai and South Africa for
the past 14 months, told
IRIN she had been "making huge profits because many
affluent people are
fed-up with the power cuts."
The power outages have further embarrassed
government officials, as they
coincided with the International Travel Expo,
an exhibition designed to
market Zimbabwe as the international tourism
destination it once was to a
host of influential industry players gathered
in Harare from around the
world.
The Herald
(Harare)
October 12, 2006
Posted to the web October 12,
2006
Harare
HARARE Central Hospital is desperately in need of
back-up electricity
generators to contain intermittent power outages that
have seen the
institution battling to cope with its four
departments.
In an interview yesterday, hospital chief executive officer,
Mr Jealous
Nderere, said the health institution was experiencing power
outages of at
least two hours a day.
"We only have three generators
to assist us with power in critical areas,
which include theatres, intensive
care unit and maternity hospital.
"We, therefore, need three more
generators to ensure that affected areas,
which include the casualty, renal
and psychiatric units and general wards,
always have electricity even in the
event of power outages," Mr Nderere
said.
He said the elevators have
also posed challenges to the hospital operations
as sometimes there is need
to rush from one floor to the other attending to
patients or removing dead
bodies.
"The load-shedding schedule is unpredictable and at the moment we
just have
to make sure we have enough diesel for our generators and enough
coal for
our boilers."
Mr Nderere said Harare Central Hospital is one
of the biggest referral
hospitals in the country that also caters for poor
people who cannot pay
fees.
He said efforts should be made to ensure
that the poor who get treatment are
not compromised in terms of quality
service.
"Normal operations and good service delivery should be
maintained even when
we have no electricity. We believe this hospital is
owned by the people of
Harare and they can also play a role in various
development projects."
The Herald
(Harare)
October 12, 2006
Posted to the web October 12,
2006
Walter Nyamukondiwa
Chinhoyi
NGEZI Rural Hospital in
Mhondoro faces imminent closure as it is failing to
provide essential drugs
and has been operating without water.
The hospital has also been facing
financial problems, which have seen it
failing to procure essential
drugs.
Patients from surrounding villages are opting to go St Michael's
Hospital
and other hospitals -- between 15 and 20 kilometres
away.
There has not been any admission of patients at Ngezi Hospital in
recent
weeks as people shun the unavailability of drugs and water.
A
pump at the treatment plant managed by Zimbabwe National Water Authority
was
stolen and the small one that was left can not cope with the demand from
the
growth point and the hospital.
The situation was made worse when a
borehole at the hospital was
contaminated by effluent from a sewer
plant.
Nurses at the hospital, which can admit up to 20 people, have to
walk long
distances to fetch water for use at the hospital and
patients.
Mashonaland West provincial medical director Dr Wenceslas
Nyamayaro
confirmed that the hospital was facing problems but ruled out its
closure
saying assessments would continue to be made.
"We are
assessing the situation to see what course of action could be taken
but
closing the hospital is not our immediate worry at the moment.
"The worst
we can do is scale down depending on the situation," said Dr
Nyamayaro.
Telephone lines to the hospital were cut in 2004 owing to
non-payment and
have not been reconnected, making communication difficult as
a radio
communication booster device was also stolen.
Efforts to have
communication links restored by TelOne have been fruitless.
Dr Nyamayaro
said a team from the district health office had been sent to
assess the
situation and another one from the provincial office and a report
on its
findings and recommendations have been compiled.
Mail and Guardian
Abhik Kumar Chanda | Johannesburg, South
Africa
12 October 2006 04:10
A South
African trade union leader said she would urge President
Thabo Mbeki to
break his silence on Zimbabwe on Friday after giving him a
film exposing
rights abuses in the neighbouring state.
"I am meeting the
president tomorrow [Friday]," Mary Malete,
leader of the Federation of
Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) told Agence
France-Presse on
Thursday.
Malete said she would try to give Mbeki a copy of a
film showing
leaders of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) being
beaten and
arrested by police when they tried to launch an anti-government
march on
September 13.
The government nipped the protest
in the bud by evoking a tough
law that bars "unauthorised"
marches.
Lawyers for the ZCTU members said secretary general
Wellington
Chibebe had a fractured arm while 29 others sustained bruises and
cuts after
being assaulted in police custody.
The ZCTU
had hoped to rope in thousands to denounce fuel and
food shortages,
four-digit inflation and 80% unemployment -- which critics
blame on economic
mismanagement by President Robert Mugabe's government.
Malete
said she would urge South Africa's Mbeki -- who has been
roundly attacked
over his so-called "quiet diplomacy" towards Zimbabwe -- to
speak out
against Mugabe, who is seen by critics as a liberator turned
oppressor.
"The film is shocking," she
said.
"We [South Africans] are complaining about the
resources not
being enough for us. What about the thousands of people coming
in from
Zimbabwe with whom we have to share the meagre
resources?"
South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond
Tutu has also
blasted Mbeki over his Zimbabwe policy, saying transgressions
should be
condemned in Zimbabwe like they were in apartheid South
Africa.
Mbeki, meanwhile, has consistently maintained that
Zimbabweans
alone can resolve the country's economic and political
crises.
Zimbabwe is in its seventh year of economic hardship
with a
four-digit inflation, spiralling unemployment and a huge deficit of
food and
essential goods, partly blamed on the Southern African country's
controversial land reforms.
At least three million
Zimbabweans are thought to have have
migrated to neighbouring countries,
especially continental powerhouse South
Africa, as well as Europe and the
United States in search for jobs.
Mugabe, who has steered the
country since it gained independence
from Britain in 1980, has also been
accused by critics of stifling democracy
and human
rights.
He defended the use of violence against the ZCTU
leaders in
September, saying "police were right in dealing
sternly".
ZCTU acting secretary general Japhet Moyo said he
hoped Mbeki
would finally see the light when he was handed video
evidence.
"The fact is that people were brutally beaten and
those pictures
expose the brutality of the Zimbabwean government," he said
in Harare.
"Mbeki will now open his eyes to what we've always
been telling
him: that our government is so brutal," he said. "The camera
does not
lie." -- Sapa-AFP
By
Lance Guma
12 October 2006
The opposition in Zimbabwe say
they continue to bear the brunt of
violence and intimidation directed at
them by ruling party supporters in the
run up to rural district council
elections at the end of this month. The
political pressure cooker continues
to boil over with several incidents
reported across the country. In Gokwe
and Shamva where the MDC managed to
field candidates uncontested, the party
alleges their candidates are being
hounded out of their areas and continue
to live in fear of their lives.
A provincial executive member for
the Tsvangirai MDC, Masimba
Ruzvidzo, told Newsreel the police and soldiers
in Mashonaland East are at
the forefront of the beating and harassing of
party supporters. In Chivhu
soldiers allegedly beat up MDC youths for
wearing party t-shirts. He says
the soldiers went on to tear up the MDC
t-shirts in front of members of the
public. In Mudzi West the aspiring
candidate for one of the wards, Mazarura
Mupangura, had three houses
belonging to his homestead torched to the
ground. Although no one was
injured Ruzvidzo says Mapangura lost all his
property.
The Zanu
PF Member of Parliament for Mudzi West is allegedly leading
the reign of
terror and directing party supporters to make the constituency
a no-go area
for the opposition. Marondera East witnessed police officers
beating up two
MDC youths who were wearing party t-shirts at a shopping
centre. The police
accused Carlos Mudzongwa and his friend of stealing fish
but Ruzvidzo told
us the real motivation was to punish them for wearing MDC
regalia. The MDC
say they have taken pictures of those assaulted and now
await their day in
court after filing police reports for each incident.
Unconfirmed reports say
one policeman has been arrested for the assaults in
Marondera East and may
appear in court soon.
Village headmen and Chiefs are also being
used to threaten opposition
supporters. Villagers are being issued with
threats that they will starve if
they vote for the opposition while some are
being told they will be banished
from their areas altogether if they insist
on supporting the MDC. Asked why
the country had realised a period of
relative calm in terms of political
violence only for things to change
over-night, Ruzvidzo likened Zanu PF to a
man or woman who had been dumped
by their partner. 'They realise they are no
longer loved and think using
force will get them their supporters back,' he
said.
Out of
about 1000 rural district council seats up for grabs Zanu PF
has already won
around 400 of them after election officials disqualified
opposition
candidates from standing.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe
news
Fin24
12/10/2006
17:24
Harare - Zimbabwe opened an international tourism fair on
Thursday to
promote its once booming resorts, lying largely deserted over
President
Robert Mugabe's controversial politics.
The southern
African country's tourism revenues have collapsed in the
face of a crumbling
economy, chronic fuel shortages and Mugabe's standoff
with Britain and other
Western nations that oppose his policies.
Annual income from the
industry has plunged by more than 70% in the
last six years from $340m to
$98m, as Western tourists, generally the big
spenders in Africa, chose to
stay away from Zimbabwe and its troubles.
Although the country has
some of the continent's most popular
destinations, including the famous
Victoria Falls resort, promoters have
found Zimbabwe a hard sell
overseas.
The government-sponsored Zimbabwe tourism authority (ZTA)
initially
responded to the dwindling numbers of Western tourists by trying
to
cultivate new markets in Asia.
'Showcasing
products'
But on Thursday the ZTA launched a new campaign to revive
the
industry, organising an international expo where it hosted more than 250
travel promoters invited from both West and East.
"What we are
doing now is to showcase our products an demonstrate to
our old traditional
markets and to the new markets that we are looking at in
Asia, in countries
like China, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, that the
country is peaceful, and
that we have first-class products," ZTA director
Karikoga Kaseke
said.
The agency says the tourism sector is a victim of bad
publicity in the
West, where Mugabe's controversial seizures of white-owned
farms for
distribution to landless blacks have made him a pariah
figure.
"Ours is a country that has been battered, bruised and
buffeted by the
severe winds of negative publicity," Kaseke
said.
'Victim of our politics'
"We are saying that the
so-called political crisis ... has never
affected the tourism industry and
that Zimbabwe is still extending its
traditional hospitality to those who
wish to visit to the country."
Zimbabwe is home to some of Africa's
largest game reserves, but local
conservation activists say some of the
animal species are at risk from
cross-border trophy hunters as well as
rampant poaching by people struggling
with hunger and rising
poverty.
Dozens of tour operators from Zimbabwe and neighbouring
African
countries are exhibiting at the fair.
Analysts say
Zimbabwe's tourism sector, characterised by deserted
resorts and hotels -
where occupancy rate is averaging 30% - can only
recover in a calmer
political environment.
"The (present) efforts are commendable, but
the whole economy, and
that includes tourism, is a victim of our politics
and we have to attend to
that," John Robertson, an economic consultant,
said.
By
Tererai Karimakwenda
12 October 2006
Three ZANU-PF
officials visited the home of a local distributor of The
Zimbabwean
newspaper in Murehwa last Saturday and threatened him with
unspecified harm
if he continued spreading the independent paper. The
distributor did not
want to be identified, so we will call him Gamuchirai
instead. He told us
the ruling party officials accused him of influencing
people in the area to
vote for the opposition. They informed him they had
also visited one of his
friends with the same message.
Gamuchirai identified them as the
ZANU-PF political commissar for
Murehwa district named Mashawa, a youth
militia leader simply known as Smart
and a woman from the ZANU-PF woman's
league structures whose name he did not
know. They said the chef of the
local district council wanted to meet him
but he refused to go. It is at
this point that Mashawa said things could get
ugly if he continued
distributing The Zimbabwean to vendors in the area.
Gamu told us
opposition supporters and candidates in the area have all
been harassed or
intimidated as the rural district council elections
approach. He said
ZANU-PF threatens anyone seen to be sympathetic to the
opposition. They even
threatened the owner of the barber shop where the MDC
candidate gets his
hair cut. Rural council elections are currently scheduled
for October
28.
Vendors who sell independent newspapers in Zimbabwe have for
years
been threatened, intimidated and even assaulted by ruling party thugs
and
officials who want only government sponsored media outlets to operate in
the
country. The government shut down all independent daily papers in the
country and has allegedly infiltrated the remaining weeklies. Oppressive
legislation was also passed which requires journalists and publishers to
register with a government appointed media
commission.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news