A former Trade Union Leader in the energy sector has stressed that the Energy Regulation Board should subject the impending electricity imports to a cost analysis study to determine the cost implication of the deal to the local economy.
Mr. Yotam Mtayachola, who is former Secretary General for the National Energy Sector and Allied Workers Union says without undertaking such a study, importing of electricity from either South Africa or Mozambique could be costly to the local economy.
Speaking in an interview Money FM, Mr. Mtayachola also notes that with Eskom of South Africa reducing generation of electricity of by about 2,000 megawatts, Zambia has limited options of finding a cheaper source of power within the southern African region.
South Africa’s power utility firm Eskom yesterday began stage two load shedding as a result of reduced capacity to supply electricity to both consumers and industry players.
This is comes at the time when Zambia is planning to import 300 megawatts of electricity from Eskom at the cost of US$13 million to offset a deficit of 700 megawatts.