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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter

VICTORIA Falls and surrounding areas have been hit by daytime power cuts as the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) is carrying out routine maintenance work on its infrastructure.

The ZETDC started maintenance work on Tuesday and is expected to finish today and the work includes replacing copper cables with aluminum ones, checking performance of power lines as well as clearing bushes.

Electricity users have since Tuesday been enduring power outages from 8am until 4.30pm.

This has affected water supply in the city while hotels and other businesses said they resorted to diesel powered generators which is costly. 

“The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) would like to advise its valued customers in Victoria Falls that there will be a power supply interruption on Tuesday 15th, Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th of February 2022 from 8am to 16:30pm for the purpose of carrying out critical maintenance works,” said the ZETDC in a statement.

The whole of Victoria Falls including the city centre, industrial and residential areas, Rainforest, hotels and lodges, Victoria Falls City Council office, waterworks and Victoria Falls Hospital are affected.

Victoria Falls Town Clerk Mr Ronnie Dube said water supply will be affected in the city during the scheduled maintenance period.

“Residents and stakeholders are notified that following an announcement by the ZETDC that there will be power interruption on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, water supply will also be interrupted as a result of the power cuts.

The local authority therefore encourages its valued residents and stakeholders to use water sparingly in view of these interruptions,” said Mr Dube.

Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ) Matabeleland North chair Mr Anald Musonza said hotels were incurring huge costs on alternative energy. 

“The recent power outages in Victoria Falls have a huge, devastating effect on business as we have resorted to using expensive generators to power our operations.

We hope ZESA will fix this as this affects business negatively,” he said without stating how much costs a hotel incurs per day.

However, operators have in the past said a hotel requires more than 2 000 litres of diesel per day to run a generator for the whole day.

Ms Mavis Moyo who operates a shop at Ndlovu Business Centre said she could not stock goods that require to be refrigerated.–@ncubeleon