THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE : SHUT DOWN KARIBA DAM POWER
By GEORGE CHOMBA
What would you say if I were appointed Zesco managing director today and tomorrow I shut down Kariba down power station?
My guess is as good as your answer.
Take it from me that we can shut down Kariba Dam power station and still have electricity in our homes and have ‘parte after parte’.
Of course, ‘parte after parte’ when our work is not affecting public service delivery.
I have done my mathematics and my total is just fine.
I know my primary and secondary schools teachers would disagree but after working for three decades, I hold the bragging rights to my opinion of being a new found calculator.
For starters, I never loved mathematics in my childhood.
Calculations were never my cup of tea and my career path can show that I believed in the word.
But over the years, fate has proven me wrong that I never needed mathematics.
Ever imagined that I have to know how many minutes you stick around to read my write up? That is mathematics.
In newspapers, do you know the shape of the document was calculated by a mathematician?
What about the letters to fit newspaper columns, the headlines and the text?
I don’t want to know about radio and television schedules because they wow me on why programmes are either in 25 minutes or one hour 25 minutes.
I always asked myself why not 30 minutes or one hour 30 minutes?
Those minutes are reserved for advertising and journalists together with mathematician who calculated them as such.
Well, enough of journalism and mathematics.
The topic here is shutting down Kariba Dam power station which gives Zesco supply of 1080 mega Watts.
According to Zesco board Chairperson Vickson Ncube, the electricity utility company has a generation capacity of 3,494 mega Watts.
So I have done my calculation using additions and subtractions.
I ask you how many mega Watts you remain with if you subtract 1080 mega Watts from 3,494 mega Watts?
If your answer is 2,414 mega Watts, then you can agree with me and President Hakainde Hichilema that; ‘Let’s start thinking beyond Kariba Dam’.
Don’t imagine but know that the total national demand for electricity is about 2,400 mega watts.
So there we have it without Kariba Dam power.
But where is the challenge of removing Kariba Dam power from the national requirement?
I have forgotten the kilometres by road from Lusaka, however, remember that I never liked mathematics.
Kariba Dam is in Siavonga which is a tourist resort with leisure lodges and beaches.
It is in Siavonga that we like boasting about fish and kapenta.
So a year without Siavonga, rightly or wrongly, is a headache for some people.
Overall, we want to see the biggest man made lake in the world, if Kariba Dam is still the biggest.
But as stated, Kariba Dam in Siavonga only has installed generation capacity of 1080 mega Watts.
Zambia has a total installed electricity capacity of 3,494 mega Watts.
There then lies the challenge with the human incompetence?
Ndola power station has an installed 105 mega Watts but producing nothing.
Lunsemfwa with 56 mega watts is also producing next to zero.
Forgive me. I am not talking about the 2021 general election where some candidates were getting zero votes.
Look at Kafue lower which is producing 385 mega Watts when it has a 600 mega Watts installed capacity.
When President Hichilema visited Maamba Collieries Limited, he found 150 of 300 mega watts removed from the grid.
The coal fired plant is only producing 133 mega Watts.
Zesco knows the statistics as what I have is right in their computers.
Infact, Zesco managers were better students in mathematics than I was and can tell Zambians the total electrity generation capacity.
But the bottom line is, we can have 24 seven electricity power in homes and industry even without Kariba.
Don’t dare me. Why go to Kariba Dam which is giving us 250 mega Watts out of 1080 and not the dormat stations and power them? I rest my case.
