. Mabumba

By JAMES KUNDA –
GOVERNMENT has opened fresh talks with South Africa over a power deal that could see Zambia start importing 300 Megawatts (MW) of electricity from that country next year.
Energy Minister David Mabumba said Zesco and South Africa’s State power utility Eskom are in discussion over the matter deliberated upon by President Edgar Lungu and his counterpart Jacob Zuma this month.
President Lungu was on a three-day State visit to that country when he and Mr Zuma discussed and agreed on areas of cooperation including balancing up trade between the two countries.
Mr Mabumba said Eskom officials were recently in the country and met their Zesco counterparts over the deal and he would soon travel to South Africa to discuss the matter with his counterpart Tina Joemat-Pettersson.
“Currently, we are importing 126 MW from Eskom, but we need that to  increase to 300 MW to effectively cushion the power deficit.
“So following the recent meeting between our two Presidents, negotiations have started and we expect to finalise the whole process next year,” Mr Mabumba said in an interview yesterday.
He said the importation of electricity was only an interim strategy to lessen the effect of the power deficit on the nation.
Mr Mabumba said Government would use next year as a window to identify additional methods of enhancing local power generation through investment in infrastructure development.
He said the nation was misinformed by reports suggesting that President Lungu opted for power imports in place of building new power generation facilities.
In apparent reference to President Lungu’s statement after touring the Kusile power station project in Nkangala District, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, Mr Mabumba said “I think people misquoted us when we were there.
“We will not abandon the development of local power generation facilities, which is a long term strategy but we also cannot sit idle, hence in the short term we are importing power to ameliorate the welfare of our people”.