Celebrating 10-hrs electricity supply! Is this how this nation has fallen?

By Daily Revelation Editor

New Heritage Party (NHP) leader Chishala Kateka has rightly observe, just like other millions of rational and open minded Zambians, that the motivation behind the increased uptick in electricity supply in compounds, kombonis, to 10 hours daily is motivated by the ruling UPND’s electioneering, barely 11 months before the elections of 2026.

And if people wanted confirmation about how the utility company ZESCO is abused to satisfy the political interests of the party in power as opposed to working out modalities to improve institutional efficiency in order to enhance business viability, this is it. The utility company is now being used to satisfy the political interests of President Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND.

It is insulting to the general populace actually that all this while in the last two years of painful blackouts in the country, which have decimated livelihoods especially in compounds, ZESCO had actually the ability to do something about the situation but neglected to do so. They are now coming on board at this very late hour when many have already been lost to destitution, businesses closed, cost of business scaled up, with some dying, during the last two years these blackouts have crippled people’s welfare. Are those in compounds going to allow themselves to be used as pawns in this political game to aide Hakainde Hichilema’s chances of re-election so that once his government has been re-elected they could be punished with more crippling blackouts? All the Zambian people want from Hichilema is to address the electricity crisis for all, not using mingalato over a serious national matter.

If they can lie about the exact reasons of increasing supply now, should they really be trusted that they will keep the same supply even after the elections? Actually, the people who are likely to be punished with more blackouts are the same ones in compounds, as the usage of electricity is more in those areas because they have more people, they are densely populated.

Is this how a government said to be run by a man who claims to run things methodically should preside over national matters, where instead of addressing a situation, they abdicate their role for piecemeal arrangements? The same piecemeal arrangements which they know they will not keep, and only using the same to advance narrow political interests? Is this what Hichilema meant when he claimed on several occasions that load shedding would end in seven months’ time? That he would achieve the same by introducing discriminatory policies to temporarily appease those in compounds by giving them more last minute electricity supply, while punishing those in the mayadis, and at the same time pleasing those in Botswana and Congo with more electricity generated from Zambia?

Hichilema, in his characteristic praise of himself, claimed that he had solutions to address the load shedding problem in seven months as all that was needed was amano (wisdom or intelligence). Well, he has an opportunity now, actually he has had four years to address the problems, two years when the problem became critical, and he has failed to find solutions. Where has he taken amano, intelligence? Has he privatised the same?

And actually, it’s just that Zambians have literally been reduced to beggars such that they can even allow their government to boast about providing electricity for only10 hours? What is 10 hours out of the 24 hours in a nation where people have always prided themselves in having unfettered access to power 24 hours daily? Zambians must not accept the mediocrity and the new lifestyle those in government are trying to impose on them.

Those in kombonis and mayadis alike, must demand 24 hours unfettered access to power, not this mediocrity they are desperately trying to impose on the people. If this is what Hichilema calls as methodical then he must find another definition for the word. And if he really believes that what he is doing is a methodical way of running affairs then Zambians ought to really be worried.

His minister of Enery Makozo Chikote justified the blackouts in places like Woodlands where he said the area was not a compound and people could afford to install solar systems. Is this how pitiful this nation has fallen where a minister can publicly boast about a government failing to address a national crisis, and thereby transferring its role to the private citizens in mayadis to fend for their own electricity needs?