Harare – Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa was forced to deliver his State of the Nation address in the dark after a power cut at the parliament.
Mnangagwa’s aide used a torch to light his speech as the veteran ruler continued to deliver his speech in a dark parliament.
This is a second incident of electricity black out at parliament during Mnangagwa’s scheduled address.
”The Parliament of the Republic of Zimbabwe sincerely regrets the loss of power supplies during the State of the Nation Address by His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Cde Dr. E.D. Mnangagwa, today on the 28th of October, and offers sincere apologies to His Excellency, the President, and to the Nation of Zimbabwe,” Kennedy Chokuda, the Clerk of Parliament said.
Chokuda said the parliament was running power supply using a generator and not the main grid from the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA).
”The loss of power supplies to key systems occurred when the Parliament building was running on a generator as the main source of supply with ZESA supply as a standby. When supplies were lost, the Generator was still running, but not supplying power,” he said.
”Preliminary investigations indicate that a circuit breaker supplying the load had tripped. The restoration took longer than expected, resulting in part of the SONA being delivered without power supply.”
Chokuda said full investigations are underway.
Zimbabwean mocked Mnangagwa and his government about the incident on social media saying the power cut was a result of the regime’s failure to run the country.
The Zimbabweans generally are used to power cuts as the southern African country fails to generate enough power.
The country requires a paltry 2200 MW but generates around 1500 MW from Hwange thermal and Kariba hydro dam.