Zimbabwe has some of the worst power cuts in the region, Mnangagwa says, as he plans to visit Mozambique and Zambia to negotiate guaranteed imports

Zimbabwe must improve its power management system as it fared badly in the region in terms of the frequency and duration of power cuts. Its distribution losses were also worse than the sub-Saharan African average of 15% by 10 percentage points, President Mnangagwa said.

Writing in his weekly column in the Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe must step up efforts to stamp out vandalism on electricity infrastructure and increase its internal power generation threefold because of the huge demand for power.

“As I write, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, Zesa, is sitting on power applications totalling 2 100MW, all requiring power under three years from now in 2025,” he said.

“This is larger than our current installed generation capacity, and far more than actual daily supply. Even more unsettling is the fact that the bulk of the demand for power is coming from the mining sector, including from projects for key minerals like gold, platinum, chrome, coal, diamonds and lithium, as well as from smelters we badly need for beneficiation and for triggering domestic industrial value chains.

“We thus just have to increase our internal power generation, possibly threefold, if we are to avoid throttling our growth, and if we are to lessen our dependency on power imports.”

Mnangagwa said he is visiting Mozambique this week and Zambia later to negotiate uninterrupted power imports.

He therefore urged the nation not to panic says his administration would ensure that the country’s economic needs are fully met.

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Preliminary results of the recent population census are out. Our total population stands at 15 178 979.

This figure represents a 16.2 percent increase from our 2012 population, which stood at 13 061 239. So much about propaganda claims that Zimbabwe’s population has been shrinking over the years.

Our womenfolk continue to be in the majority. In 2012, 6 780 700 of our total population were female, while 6 280 539 were male. The latest preliminary results show that the two sets of figures have risen to 7 889 421 for women and 7 289 558 for men. Whereas women outnumbered men by 500 161 in 2012, now they enjoy a lead of 599 863.

Well done ladies!

Another striking statistic from the latest preliminary census results is the urban-rural share of the population.

While we had 67 percent of the population living in rural areas in 2012, that figure has since come down to 61.4 percent, suggesting either or both of: more rural-to-urban migration; or more urbanisation of erstwhile rural areas.

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