The bad state of roads in the country, coupled with incessant rains, is hampering the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) to attend to faults on time, an official with the state-owned power utility has said.
Most of the roads in Zimbabwe are in a bad state following the heavy rains which pounded the country in the last two seasons.
Engineer Gibson Kasipo, the ZETDC Southern Region General Manager, told a press conference in Gweru that some places even become inaccessible during wet conditions, thus stalling operations.
“Sometimes we have poles that are down, conductors that are down and the other challenge that we have is accessibility, Kasipo said. “Sometimes when it rains you want to go and replace a pole and to be able to do that you have to go to the site, but the site is not accessible.”
He said because of the accessibility problem, the power utility`s ‘intervention would be low.’
“During this time of the year, we have a number of faults that occur and Gwenoro feeder is not spared,” he added.
The Gwenoro feeder supplies power to the Gweru City Council`s water pumping station.
Power cuts due to faults are a common occurrence during rainy seasons, adding to the electricity outages that are caused by the load shedding exercise.