GHANA: Power exports to Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso cancelled
…as incubator failure leads to infant death
Amb. Anthony Mukwita
9th June 2024
Winding up the international news roller-coaster is ever an anti-climax for me.
It’s hard to choose what news cord to close the week on especially if you love good news as much as I do, I am incurable romantic myself if truth be told.
But alas, good news has been extremely elusive lately, not just in our country Zambia but beyond the sub-region so hold onto the candle of hope, and the real wax candle because you will need it tonight.
High cost of living, fuel prices dominate the media space as hope fadeth away and I don’t wanna be a harbinger here, don’t kill the messenger.
Today, however, outside Zambia a story in Ghana regarding a young lady called Rashida caught my attention like a lightning bolt.
Rashida´s child died in an incubator in Ghana because the ZESCO of Ghana switched off power during a routine schedule the same way our ZESCO does daily.
Rashida as you can imagine is not only grief stricken but livid at the fact that her child died has died because the power company failed in its job. Theres no excuse to that, you can’t compensate a mother for a loss of a child.
Subsequently, Ghanaians took to the streets today demonstrating against the death and asking Mr Nana Akuffo Addo who promised “no load shedding in 2016” during a presidential campaign to step down. Familiar?
The democracy playing field in Ghana still remains high so no one has been arrested for asking President to ´step down´, in Zambia today you have to be careful what you say and where.
But whatever you want to say about President Addo´s government, there´s kudos you must give him, he has stopped power exports to neighbouring countries, Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso in direct response to the protests.
He doesn’t see any sense in exporting power to neighbours at whatever coast as babies die in Ghana.
In Zambia ZESCO management, board and others stay in office draw salaries as Zambians are reduced to fewer and fewer minutes of electricity and shut down poultry and salon business, in an already depressed economy.
The difference between Zambia and Ghana I suppose is that Ghanaians can heckle the President to stop exporting power, in Zambia you can’t even speak against some simple power utility company boss or board chair.
Failure as a corporate is not a punishable offence, we reward you for that in Zambia.
It´s business as usual until we start going without power for days, dead small business shops strewn along the streets abound.
As we try to ´fix the puzzle´ Ghana has stopped power exports to neighbours to save more children from dying in incubators. A challenge for Zambian journalists.
“The lips of the righteous teaches many, but fools die for want of wisdom.”—Peter Tosh.
Amb. AM 09.06.24
So what’s your point here, Zambia is not Ghana and Ghana is not Zambia, the two countries have totally different challenges. You the so called Ambassadors have a big problem, you think you will go back to those countries. that’s a bygone, just think of other things to do. There is nothing you are telling us in your story apart from trying to incite the people to protest like they did in Ghana. In Zambia things are different my dear, even at the peak of load shedding, hospitals are never load shedded. I am even surprised how such a thing could happen in Ghana, but I can rest assure you that it can’t happen in Zambia. We have our capable Minister Masebo, if she heard of such a thing at one of our hospitals, heads can roll at ZESCO, she can breath fire on them.
Citizen uli cipuba wembwa wee…why do you support ifyabupuba?
And in his haste to incite us he even attributes a Bible quote to a rastaman. Those words are not by Peter Tosh but from the Bible. Proverbs 10 v 21. I thought journalists were the masters of research!
There is no need to insult me and I am not supporting anything here. The issue here is the load shedding and the hospitals, so before you insult me, just give me an example of a big hospital which is being load shadded and babies are dying in the incubators. If you stay in Lusaka, start with UTH, Maina Soko, then you can extend to Ndola Central, Kitwe Central, Kasama, Chipata, Livingstone, Lewanika, Mansa, Kabwe General hospitals etc. if you find one, maybe that’s when you can think of insulting me. Otherwise we don’t switch off hospitals as if we are in a war zone like Gaza, no. So iyo insele ya mbwa ulentuka ine, I don’t even deserve it because an imbwa is the one who switches off a hospital without any back up. Good day mwana.