It’s not just Zimbabwe even Europe and the United States tear dropping prices are wreaking havoc around the world.
By Dr Masimba Mavaza | Zimbabwe has been facing unprecedented challenges with electricity and people are getting agitated. The former minister of energy Fortune Chasi was released of his duties and Minister Zhemu was brought in but the darkness has become more pronounced than light. Fraustrated citizens try to blame ZANU PF and the hard working president Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.
The CCC and their disgraced parrot Hopewell Ching’ono have tried to put the electricity problems at ZANU PD’s door steps.
The energy crisis is not peculiar to Zimbabwe. It is now a global crisis. The world started to experience energy crisis for a decade now. However this became more visible in 2021.
The 2021–present global energy crisis is the most recent in a series of circular energy shortages experienced over the last fifty years. It is more acutely affecting countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, China, United States and Zimbabwe among others. The crisis has emerged in oil, gas and electricity markets.
Power outages are the average number of power outages that establishments experience in a typical month or week as the problem become more and more pronounced globally.
Failing power grids are a leading reason for disastrous power outages that can affect residential and commercial activities. Countries that fail to invest in modern technologies for their power grids run the risk of suffering great financial loss. Power loss can range from a few hours to several days. While modern power grids have better technology than those in the past, they are still prone to risks of their own. Power outage causes can range from solar flares to cyber-attacks. However, since much of the world does not have access to the latest technologies they are destined to suffer the largest relative losses due to power outages.
Zimbabwe has seen it’s fair share of outages but it is not the most affected country.
Now as Russia becomes economical with Europe’s gas supply, the world is staring down a worrisome energy future. This has serious ripple effects and can be felt as far as Zimbabwe. It is not a fallacy when Zimbabwe points at Ukraine Russian war as another source of outages in the country. For months, sky-high natural gas and oil prices have been wreaking havoc around the world, and experts warn that there is no end in sight as long as the war in Ukraine barrels on.
From Ecuador to South Africa, to Zimbabwe fuel shortages and blackouts have plunged import-dependent countries into economic turmoil, leaving desperate governments scrambling for workaround solutions.
Zimbabwe depends more on import and export and the world crisis in power hits Zimbabwe right in the heart. Our economy is not spared and it’s a pity that opposition politicians seek to use electricity shortages as a campaign point. The power outages affect the richest countries how can CHAMISA turn that around. Politics of opportunity leads people into more darkness.
In Sri Lanka, which was already buckling under mounting crises, acute shortages and dayslong lines have forced authorities to issue work-from-home orders. Pakistan has resorted to shortening its work week to relieve pressure from lengthy power cuts, while Panama has been rocked by demonstrations over surging prices. This crisis had not spared Zimbabwe. The state of the electricity supply in Zimbabwe does not reflect the ability to govern or lack of it by ZANU PF. Those who blame ZANU PF for the darkness are shameless opportunists who are just after self aggrandisement and have no people at heart.
“We are experiencing the first global energy crisis,” said Jason Bordoff, an energy expert at Columbia University, who noted that the crunch has hit almost all of the world’s regions and energy sources. “The ripple effects are being seen globally, and I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet.”
Markets were already tight before Russia invaded Ukraine, the result of a combination of the pandemic, supply chain slowdowns, and climate shocks. That was compounded by curtailed Russian gas exports, which forced Europe to turn elsewhere for its supplies and further drove up prices in the global marketplace. Now, as climate change-fueled extreme heat adds more fuel to the fire, these challenges have only deepened. Surely these challenges can never be translated as the failures of ZANU PF. It is a desperate move for the CCC to use electricity problems as a campaign tool. The opposition politricks must realise that.
“It’s just an interconnected global system,When you put pressure in one place, it is felt somewhere else.” So the shortages of electricity in Zimbabwe has nothing to do with the government’s way of governing.
The last time the world experienced a disastrous energy crunch—albeit only for oil—it was the 1970s, and OPEC had imposed an embargo that sent shockwaves through the oil industry. That crisis birthed the International Energy Agency (IEA) and pushed industrialized nations to develop strategic reserves in preparation for future supply disruptions. said Antoine Halff, an expert at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. But alas many emerging market economies and debt-laden countries including Zimbabwe don’t have this same cushion, leaving them especially exposed to any disturbances. This is a global problem which affects us as a nation.
Today, Zimbabwe is a whole new cast which has been developing rapidly and has been using more and more energy—and that’s a great sign that reflects its economic development. But that also made Zimbabwe much more vulnerable to disruption risks, and it is not part of that safety net of the IEA. Development which has been brought in by ED and ZANU PF has put more demand of electricity and this has made the shortages very visible. Instead of celebrating the development brought in by ED and ZANU PF the detractors are busy cherry picking problems and package them as failure.
“Take Pakistan, which has been struggling to cope with power cuts, or Ecuador, where deadly protests over surging fuel prices and costs brought the country to a near standstill in June. In recent weeks, both Ghana and Cameroon have been gripped by protests over fuel prices and shortages. So have Argentina and Peru, where surging energy costs have sparked strikes and demonstrations.
“The poorest countries in the world are struggling economically already, are in weak fiscal positions, and are just struggling to afford energy at all,” Bordoff said. “You’re going to see, I think, worse risk of rolling blackouts and trouble keeping the lights on and the electricity going in parts of the world that are lower income and don’t have stable electricity grids to begin with.” Zimbabwe does not exist on its own and it is indeed affected as much as other countries are affected.
Some countries are already in the dark. South Africa, which is certainly no stranger to load-shedding, has been plagued by rolling blackouts as it grapples with one of its worst-ever energy crises. So has Cuba, which was already suffering under widespread power outages. To avoid meeting the same fate, other nations have turned back to coal. As the energy crisis deepened in May, India pledged to restart coal mines and ramp up production; in June, India’s imports of coal reached record levels. And the country could be in it for the long haul, Indian Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh warned.
What the opposition is doing now is so potentially politically perilous because it really causes so much misery for so many citizens and it is raising anger in people for a situation which has gripped the world.
The opposition has not given the
People a way forward except just blaming ZANU PF.
Commenting on Russia’s war Dr Croft said “We could be looking at more disruption in the energy market and higher prices for oil come December, depending on how these sanctions are enforced,” Croft said.
And experts say the future of the crisis is deeply intertwined with the duration of the Russia-Ukraine war, which shows no signs of stopping. “It’s going to continue as long as this war goes on,” Ferreira said. “We see no indications that we are nearing an off-ramp here in the conflict.”
With 2023 beckoning nobody as power to improve power outages and this can not be laid on ZANU PF’s doorstep. Truth be told the biggest losers worldwide from power outages do not include Zimbabwe. With the way electricity is a problem in Zimbabwe Mnangagwa has kept Zimbabwe out of the top ten most affected countries. This shows that despite the problems we have moved on and we are still on the move. Again many countries have been financially affected by failing power grids. This puts Zimbabwe in the same oven and still this does not reflect failures but this actually shows how resilien is. He is pulling the country through against all odds.
As already indicated Zimbabwe is not in the top ten countries prone to financial loss from power outage.
The worst hit country is AFGHANISTAN followed by UGANDA. UNGA Ganda is followed by MADAGASCAR. Other countries in serious power outages are,SOUTH SUDAN,TANZANIA, NIGERIA, GHANA, NEPAL,YEMEN and, PAKISTAN which is the most hit. Zimbabwe is not in the top ten and vilifying it is sheer mischief and unpatriotic. We must know that there are several causes of a power outage, many of which are common around the U.S. and Europe. These include storms, wind, ice, downed power lines, blown transformers , and overloaded power stations to name a few. Vehicle accidents and animal damage can also lead to power outages.
Again there are causes of outages which are natural and beyond human control. These are Solar flares which may occur in space, but they have a great impact here on Earth. Powerful energy releases from the sun and creates bursts of solar wind as well as magnetic fields, which interrupt electrical currents. While the effects can happen anywhere, it is much more likely to hit low altitude areas. Again droughts do cause power outage. Uganda and Tanzania have experienced power outages due to low water levels in hydroelectric dams. These dams have electric turbines, which spin when water passes through them. If the water levels get too low, they stop spinning and electricity cuts out. This happens in part due to poor maintenance, but also because these countries often experience droughts.
It is not Zimbabwe which is affected, Much of the developing world does not have access to technology to improve utility infrastructures. Therefore, in countries such as Uganda, Ghana, and Afghanistan, poor infrastructure maintenance is a major cause of power outages. Regardless of the cause, when it comes to power for your home, ED has you covered. We struggle but we get there. Zimbabwe has shown extraordinary power to survive in hard times. These are hard times but ED will get us there. Next time you hear people say Zimbabwe has been mismanaged just remember dogs barks only to a moving car. We are moving as Zimbabwe and as ZANU PF. Move with us.
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