Don’t know about you but 16 hour long power cuts are starting to get me down. This update from the Zimbabwe Power Company helps to explain the current spate of bad power:

It is with regret that I advise of the fact that we (Zimbabwe Power Company) lost the four producing units at Hwange Power Station yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 25th April). One unit was brought back onto the grid last night and we hope to bring a second, larger unit, back around 4am tomorrow (Friday 26th April). Repair on the third unit is scheduled for completion such that it will be ‘returned to service’ on Saturday morning. Two phase one (smaller) units are having their rotors re-wired in South Africa – this is major work.

Kariba has five units on line with the sixth due back on the grid in mid-May after routine, but critical, maintenance ahead of winter.

The Hwange and Kariba expansion plans remain on program at this time. The tenders are out and close in June. this will be followed by 2 three month periods for tender review and finalisation of funding/award. Thereafter construction will take between three to four years (2016-17).

R. Maasdorp
Chairman ZPC

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Update from the ZPC Chairman – 10pm 29 April:

Please be advised that the 4 units at Hwange Power Station are now back on the grid. I take this opportunity to thank those, at the station,  who worked extremely long hours to get these units operational. In addition I thank ZETDC technical support staff for the rapid response to this situation.

Interesting to read in the Mail and Guardian about “Colonial past haunts Britain again”, where 8800 files from 37 former colonies have been unearthed in Hanslope Park, and other UK National archive hideaways. More interesting might have been the ones they burned from 1961 on. At that time, a policy was put in place (it’s in the files) to burn and hide (destroy) some files from the former colonies, and to leave a select few (‘legacy’ files) to the new Independent countries.

Some of the hidden files have been found, and some of the information in them is quite damaging (that is why they were hidden), describing torture, murder, cover-ups and other ‘wrong’ activities by Her Majesty’s government.

Even regarding the standard rule of thumb, that you cannot judge the past, and activities from the past, by today’s standards of behaviour, we just know that some things are ‘wrong’, and would have been then. For example, the death of Captain Cook in Hawaii. Was he killed, or murdered? He certainly died, but was what he was doing wrong, or was what the islanders doing wrong, or was it all a big accident, a misunderstanding? Well, we cannot take Roman Dutch law in Zimbabwe today, or Royal Navy High seas doctrine now, or even USA law as currently practiced

All those basic matters aside though, the real point is that, 50 years after – over 50 years after – the activities took place, they are being revealed. And the perpetrators – who are guilty by standards in place at that time – are being found guilty and are paying.

How does that apply to today’s life? Simple. Don’t do anything wrong. You know what is wrong. It is inside you. It may also be currently written, but mostly it is known. “You know”. The only safe path is not to commit a crime or do anything ‘wrong’. A pardon (from the King/Queen/Head of State/Head of Government) will not help. Time will not wash it away. Your only defence is do what is right. And you know what is right, no one can tell you.

Okay, so this is nothing like the Kenyan political graffiti we shared recently. But if this wall in Highlands, Harare is anything to go by, Zimbabwean youth are warming up their spray cans and getting ready to express themselves.

Spotted this on a walk the other day. Given that Labradors tend to be about the friendliest dogs you can imagine, no wonder they had to clarify!