Govt roundly faulted for power shortage

Economist and businessman Nathan Kgabi says the power outages are becoming a pandemic similar to HIV/Aids and requires similar attention. During a discussion of the 2008/9 Budget Speech organised by the Botswana Council of Churches (BCC) at Trinity Church Hall on Wednesday, Kgabi said he was disappointed that Finance and Development Planning Minister Baledzi Gaolathe did not clearly spell out how much the government is committed to solving the problem.

The budget speech was delivered in Parliament on Monday. Kgabi, who is the former Chief Executive Officer of Metropolitan Botswana, said that he knows of a number of big companies which are on the brink of collapse because of reduced profit margins resulting from the intermittent power outages. "If we do not have proper measures to address the problem, businesses will collapse and people will lose jobs," he said. He stressed that the negative impact of the power outages on the economy will hit the ordinary man on the street harder.