Zesa restores power to parts of Bulawayo

Zesa has partially fixed a fault that led to a power blackout in parts of Bulawayo since Monday. Some sections of Bulawayo city centre spent the rest of the working week without power following the destruction of Zesa underground cables at two different points in the city on Monday evening.

Initially, Zesa had attributed the black out to an electrical fault at its substation in the Belmont Industrial area. After fixing the electrical fault at Belmont on Thursday, power was restored in Suburbs and Ilanda suburbs that had also been without power since Monday evening.

However, yesterday an official said they traced and discovered burnt cables at two different points in the city. By late last night the technicians had not succeeded in fixing the fault affecting the city centre.

Zesa acting Western Region general manager Engineer Lloyd Jaji said: ''The technical team has identified the electrical cable that got burnt along 9th Ave and the other at Plus-2 Pharmacy which is along Robert Mugabe Way.

"The team is working flat out to restore power supplies although they would not be able to finish today (yesterday)," said Eng Jaji.

"The challenge we have is that the cables are underground and that is why it took some time for the technical team to identify the problem, the team is currently underground replacing the burnt cables'', said Eng Jaji.

The blackout has been a huge setback for businesses, some of which had just reopened following the relaxation of the lockdown regulations. While some businesses have been forced to use generators, an expensive power alternative, some have closed waiting for electricity to be restored.

Eng Jaji apologised to customers for the interruption of power reiterating that the technical team is working flat out to restore supplies.