President Edgar Lungu has directed the Ministry of Energy to priorities supplying electricity to Health institutions with effect from midnight today.
President Lungu said hospitals and clinics should be given first priority by ZESCO, as the country grapples with load shedding.
He made the directive during the official opening of the 4th Session of the 12th National Assembly in Lusaka today.
The Head of State wondered how health workers have been attending to patients amidst power outages.
President Lungu urged the Minister of Energy Matthew Nkhuwa to ensure that hospitals and clinics are exempted from load shedding.
The President said he was saddened to see people moving at night in the dark without power as it possess security risk to the citizenry.
“When I drive at night, I feel very sad to see people moving at night without power. This possess a security risk to the people.” He said.
President Lungu noted most household have their food gone to waste due to load shading.
The Head of State attributed the load shedding to the poor rainfall recorded in the previous rainy season 2017/2018.
President Lungu told parliament that successive government did not put in place early warning systems to mitigate the effects of climate change.
He called for concerted efforts in mitigating the effects of climate change that has negatively affected the national economy.
President Lungu advised the nation to refrain from pointing fingers at each other but rather work together in addressing the challenges of climate change.
Incompos Leader and his Tribal Union think their Privatization Thief can make Zambezi and Chongwe rivers be filled with water! CHILDISH!
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Koma pa lusaka times newsdesk Pali circus. Maheadline?
The Lungu directs secretary-to-the-cabinet to immediately clean-up the public-service payroll.. Kkkkk the Lungu
Ministry of Energy diretected….. Fimofimo
Diretected?
Imwe ba lungu stop blaming the weather for your incompetence and corruption……
South Africa also suffered load shedding some 3 to 4 years ago , same time as us , the South Africans attributed this to low investment in the energy sector and acted. Today the same South Africa has the same weather pattern as us but you are now importing electricity from them.
You lungu were busy looting the eurobonds with your gang while others saw the need to invest in the power generation sector……
anyone who is not into engineering will clap to this…. i end here
“President Lungu told parliament that successive government did not put in place early warning systems to mitigate the effects of climate change”
Well since assuming office what has he done about it? Public pressure and simple acts by the citizenry hits leadership where it hurts and spells danger for holding on to office with complacency! Reason ZESCO is being directed to ensure undisturbed power supply to clinics could be partly the effect of hearing that an opposition party was going to donate a generator to some clinic/hospital in a high density area and that the population was happy to receive the donation! Forced to do the right thing under people pressure! Huh! Greedy politicians and fear of rejoining what the common citizen endures daily! My guess is that areas where these…
contd…… “leaders” reside there is no load shedding being experienced!
True. For example, there would be load shedding in Ng’ombe while Kalundu, Roma and across the stream as you head towards Kaunda Square there would be supply.
So Lungu is now blaming his failures on climatic change. Climate change has nothing to do with rampant Corruption in his PF Govt. There is no Respect for Constitutionalism, Rule of Law, Good Governance and Human Rights. Without Good Governance No Devt can take place in Zambia.
“President Lungu told parliament that successive government did not put in place early warning systems to mitigate the effects of climate change.”
Empty rhetoric, too boastful to be a quality president.
Instead of telling us how he is going to end loadshedding in the short,medium and long term,he is busy issuing empty directives to share electricity which is not there!! After increasing tariffs by 75% his govt has not told us how ZESCO’s Profitability has improved and why they can’t easily import power to meet the deficit and restore supply to 24/7.SO WHAT IF YOU RESTATE OUR PROBLEMS AS WE KNOW THEM WITHOUT ANY SOLUTIONS FROM YOU AS HEAD OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT?! – IT BECOMES MOCKERY!!
That might be tall order for both MOH and ZESCO. Doesn’t it require huge sums to isolate the respective health units from township supply? Who foots that bill, MOH? It,ll be interesting to hear how they ingeniously sort that out. Might be note cost effective to light up facilities with solar instead.
HH seems to influence quite a lot of actions. He could develop this country using this strategy alone.
Directives, hollow directives without any well-thought-out strategies! When is he going to tell us about positive outcomes from his implemented policies!? When other leaders fly around the world, they go back and tell their people what the country has gained from the trip. But aba na ba Findly babo, kaya – bali zii – as if they are on private trips!!??
Sir what about farmers like us? We are throwing away milk which is going sour. The cost of diesel to run the genset is so high that we cannot sell the milk at the price we are. We sold quite a number of our cows and downsized when pf started loadshedding in 2012. Now it seems like time has come that the remaining business has to close. This had been the story for most of the farmers including growing crops on irrigation. And that one of the reasons farming hads gone down in the last 7 years of pf. Thats why melie meal is so high. Mmd days were happy days for all. But now there is misery all over.
Keep it up HH!
At least you have come to the help of patients and health workers who were subjected to clinics without power at night! They have no vision to see that even when you don’t loadshed those clinics, ZESCO power can still fail so you still need power backup like the state of the art Silent Gensets you are being prevented from donating! They can’t even install simple Solar lighting for our life-saving facilities and yet when patients die because of power failure, it’s the health workers who are blamed! You have clearly demonstrated that Zambia has the wrong chaps running country affairs! Leaders who don’t have compassion for the welfare of those they are leading are not fit for public office! How do you loadshed a health Facility?
This is exactly what is called Chimbwi no plan!
When our leaders announced the resumption of loadshedding, we were under the impression that these guys had sat down and did a risk assessment of where they should loadshed and where they should not. Alas, these guys had no such foresight! It was the usual chipantepante approach to issues of great national importance. The presidential directive is indeed confirmation that the welfare of citizens is treated as an afterthought by this crop of leaders we have! They just don’t care how our health workers struggle to attend to emergencies in the dark! Chilufya should be ashamed of himself!
Ndipo bazabelapo ndrama pamene pali direction imene iyi! Just watch and see. OK. I don’t think I should even comment further since these speeches are just cabe-cabe koma.
I have been in Namibia for a business trip, No rivers No dams but No load shading and water flows in taps, but back home it is 12 hrs load shading . Botswana No rivers but no load shading it is only zambia and cousin Zimbabwe who had no plans
Namibia and Botswana get their electricity from the xenophobic South African and they part of Southern African Custom Union (SACU), the oldest custom union in the world.
“President Edgar Lungu has directed the Ministry of Energy to priorities supplying electricity to Health institutions with effect from midnight today.”
Directives directives directives, and how is that supposed to be done? Shouldn’t you discuss with the ministry concerned and see whether or not it is doable, otherwise the ministry will be wasting precious time trying to do things that are undoable. Well of course those health facilities can successfully be spared from load shedding if you connect them to state house power supply.
I have counted at least 1800 directives since January this year, and none executed successfully so far. Goes to show the quality of advice or lack of advice.