Tempers flare at BPC briefing

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Friday February 15, 2008 00:00

The briefing was organised by Botswana Exporters and Manufacturers Association (BEMA). Tempers started to  rise when the stakeholders were given a chance to ask questions. Despite the presentation that had been made by BPC earlier, the Francistown business community would not accept assurances that BPC had everything under control. Northern Textiles (Nortex) director Mokesh Josh said that his textile has been hard hit by the power outages.

'Why were we not informed in time that this would happen? This came as a total surprise. We have orders to fill and we have no generators, no back-up,' he said. Manufacturers fumed at the BPC for neglecting their companies' needs. They all asserted that not having power at the home was bad enough but at the factory it was even worse. Mokesh said that his company consumed 1MW per day but it was the first target when it came to power cuts while mines were left alone.

'They consume so much power than we do but we are targeted. Are we not useful? Is it a sign that we should stop manufacturing?' he fumed. Josh added that Nortex is an important company with over 400 employees.

'It is not a small shop. If we cannot meet our orders, then we are charged penalties. We are being discouraged,' he said.

Barely able to control his temper, Richard Lowe from the Tati Nickel Mining contracted company, HATCH, said that there was clearly no planning by BPC.

He said that whoever does planning should not be there right now. 'You can show us all these graphs about when we bath and when we go to work but this happens all over Southern Africa. It is not unique to BPC,' he said. He blamed the BPC for going ahead with rural electrification when they knew that they would not be able to deliver.

'Why are you raising these people's hopes? You are busy sending out cables to these villages. You are a national utility and you should answer these questions. The planning was very poor from the beginning and whoever is doing the planning should not be on this job,' he added. In general, manufacturers are not as optimistic about the situation as BPC is.

They had a lot of hot questions that had BPC on their toes trying to answer them. Most stakeholders are wondering why BPC had to rely solely on Eskom and why they had to sign the new Eskom contract that obviously put Botswana at a disadvantage. BPC revealed that in the new contracts Eskom can order that BPC reduces supply at any time. They said that at this point Eskom is supplying 315MW instead of the agreed 350MW. BPC announced that some 80MW are sourced from two companies in Mozambique, electricidade de Mocambique (EDM) and Hydro Electrica Cahora Bassa (HCB) through Zimbabwe and South Africa respectively. One of the stakeholders, Nigel Monroe of Eridene Recycled Cartridges wondered how Botswana could rely on a route that depended on Zimbabwe. 'We all know that Zimbabwe is unstable right now, how can we rely on Zimbabwe,' he said, Monroe also condemned Botswana for refusing proposal by Kalahari Gas.

'These gas fields have been around for five years at least. We do not understand why you would want to spend $65 million to find out how much gas is there underground,' he said.

Most manufacturers also worried that as employers, the situation was working against their relationships with their employees and income. Most of them said that BPC did not address practical problems like who is going to pay employees for overtime; who is going to pay for the penalties they suffer from their consumers; and who is going to pay for the damaged goods caused by sudden power cuts? By the end of the meeting, the small irate crowd seemed uncontrollable. They would not even give BPC much chance to respond. BPC director of Corporate Services, John Helmand, said that Botswana did not reject Kalahari Gas proposal. He said Kalahari Gas was unable 'to quantify their supply to be able to get bankable financing'. He said that they needed to quantify for commercial viability. Helmand also said that since last Wednesday, Francistown should have been seeing less power cuts as BPC had secured the line from Mozambique, EDM, through the 50MW.

'Francistown, Sowa and Maun are now getting their power from this line through Zimbabwe. That is a short-term solution and things have gotten better since the shifting last Wednesday,' he said.