30 Apr 2014

Power outages might be a thing of the past by end of May if Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) plans bear fruit, according to the corporation's Mr Dennis Olaotse.

He told the Hotel and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) annual conference in Kasane recently that two of Morupule B Power station’s units that had not been functioning were expected to be operational by end of May.

“Unit two is expected to be back in operation by end of April, while Unit 4 is expected to be back in operation by end of May this year,” he explained. Currently Morupule B is functioning with two units. Each of the four units has the capacity to produce 150 megawatts.

With a further injection of up to 80 megawatts from Mozambique in August and ongoing negotiations with other neighbouring countries for more supply of electricity, load shedding might be a thing of the past.

He noted that the commissioning of Morupule B slightly reduced the reliance of import power from 94 per cent in 2012 to 76 per cent in 2013. Botswana’s reliance on power imports had increased from 51 per cent in 2000 to 94 per cent in 2012 before Morupule B came to the rescue, he said.

Concerning water related issues, a representative from Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) said the corporation’s strategy was for everyone to have and use prepaid metres by the year 2017. Mr Joel Selemogwe alerted the conference that Botswana had experienced several droughts in the past.

He said while water restrictions normally followed in such a situation, enforcing them on the general public is not working for them as that has not yielded much result. “What we need is to educate the general public,” he said.

Recycled waste water might be an option to address the situation but Mr Selemogwe noted that the public is apprehensive about using waste water including even key decision makers.

Explaining the situation in Maun where there was water shortage, he explained that this has nothing to do with shortage of water but WUC’s dilapidated infrastructure.

Participants advised that WUC must first start educating their own employees on response and turnaround time as they often respond to queries after several days.

The Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) held its conference under the theme “Tourism: driver for economic sustainability.” Ends