By Antynet Ford
Zimbabwe Parliament was yesterday plunged into darkness as Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube was delivering his speech.
The lights flickered and died, leaving top officials like President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, and members of parliament sitting in the dark.
The outage is a symptom of Zimbabwe’s ongoing crisis, with daily 12-hour blackouts driven by a prolonged drought that is crippling energy generation at the Kariba Dam, the country’s main power source.
As the lights went out, opposition MPs shouted that the outage was an apt metaphor for the country’s state of affairs.
George Manyaya, a spokesperson from the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority told their local media that the blackout had not been planned.
He said parliament had its dedicated electricity supply which is exempt from power cuts.
He said the blackout had happened because of a lightning strike.
Before the lights went out, Ncube said the agricultural sector would contract by 15% this year because of the drought.
The minister projected that the economy would grow by 6% next year due to the forecast of above-average rainfall – which would also serve to improve the supply of electricity.
