Zambia's Loadshedding Situation

October to March is generally classed as the “Green” or wet season here in the Copperbelt Region and it is roughly the same all over Zambia and looking out into our garden here in Ndola you would imagine it is very wet. The grass is green and lush, many plants flowering in vivid colours and the areas that are not cultivated are looking very overgrown with the undergrowth now reaching way above the height of people. This is in stark contrast to just a few months ago before Christmas when the ground still looked brown and parched, most trees were still leafless and virtually nothing was growing. It sounds perfect but all is not well. The average rainfall for the wet season in the Copperbelt is around 1400mm and so far this year we have had less than half at  around 660mm. (to put it in context, London gets an average of 594mm over the year) In other parts of Zambia and the neighbouring countries of Zimbabwe and Botswana it is much much worse with very little rainfall this year and many of these countries declaring a “National drought” This is all being put down as part of the El Nino effect on world weather but that does not help here in Zambia. Most of the population of Zambia rely on growing crops, some to sell and some to rely on to get them through the year. Maize is a staple food and this year it is going to be in short supply. The rains this season started late and are already coming to an end although we are still getting some torrential storms that wash away roads and produce very short term flooding adjacent to the small water courses. A month ago these storms were happening for an hour or so at least every other day, now it is perhaps once a week.

The rainfall also has a major effect of Zambia’s economy. Many of you will have heard of the “loadshedding” that all areas of Zambia are suffering. This is when no electricity is supplied to you for a period each day. Zambia relies almost totally on Hydro Electric Power and has huge power plants at both Kariba and Kafue. Both of these reservoirs are extremely low and with the lack of rainfall there is very little hope of them filling up this year now so the loadshedding will continue on. 

Roads washed away by torrential downpours

The lack of power may be a nuisance to us in a private home where usually we are without power from either 5.00am until 13.00 or from 13.00 until 21.00. (please note these are so called published times but are often several hours extra on top of these) Imagine you are a small business such as John Moyo’s metal fabrication business from Ndeke Compound in Ndola. John made the fantastic new security gates at Janna School.

The new gates at Janna

As he explained, most of his work relies on power so he can cut, grind, weld and make or alter a whole range of works Although the loadshedding is scheduled to be most nights where his workshop is, in reality the power is down many times during the day so that means he cannot get on and therefore earn money. John has 7 children in his family and they all rely on his diminishing income. He commented that not only is his money going down but with the huge inflation going on including rent of his workshop rising, his actual income is way down on last year. He is diversifying a little and has started repairing and selling bicycle spares to try and get more money.

John Moyo

Now John’s may only be a very small business but even the bigger companies are suffering. It is not unknown for shops including the largest supermarkets to close when there is no power. In Kawama, another compound that Beyond Ourselves is connected with the small market there has several small computer and other “shops” that need electricity as well as many “stalls” or Ntembas (very small shops) that sell what the person grows. When the power is off they cannot operate or the lack of rainfall means you grow a lot less and have little to sell, so they close and make no money. For the majority of the people in the compounds they have no fall back or reserves as they live on day to day earnings. Now spread that across the whole country then you can see that Zambia itself, cannot be getting in the amount of taxes and other revenue it needs. Compound that with the closure of many of the mines and drastically reduced income from exports of minerals it becomes very hard to see how The Country can deal with many of these problems in the short term, especially when the rains are failing over many parts of Africa. With elections coming up in August, it must also be a very worrying time for the Government here.

It is the local population that will suffer the most with falling income, rising prices and an almost certain shortage of staple foods over the coming months.