Zimbabwe's energy crisis continues to deteriorate as the country fails to find a permanent solution to end the problem.

Zimbabwe's Kariba Dam One Of Zimbabwe's Electricity Sources

A Zesa official in Harare said the country's residents should brace themselves for the worse, especially this winter season.

“The government has ordered us to switch-off electricity in residential suburbs during the day so as to pave way for winter wheat farmers.”

“In many areas, electricity has been scheduled to go around 7 o'clock in the morning and supplies resume around 8 o'clock in the evening,” he said.

This week, electricity supplies have been cut on a daily basis during the day in areas such as Marlborough, Westgate, Newlands, Greendale, Warren Park, Mabelreign, Westlea, among many others. Supplies only resume at night.

For some years now, the country’s' financially crippled main power utility company- the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) has failed to maintain and repair its stations in Hwange, Kariba, and even the small sub-stations in residential areas.

The official said the timetable is almost the same for other cities and towns across the country.

“Electricity supplies have deteriorated because we are giving advantage to farmers, so they will not compromise in their harvests.”

“However, the situation is likely to continue until the season passes,” said ZESA.

Zimbabwe's electricity problems date back to 2002 when ZESA became broke. In 2003, the company embarked on a 'Look to the East' policy, in an effort to bring the company back on its feet.

In 2006, the RBZ governor, Gideon Gono is understood to have controversially halted tariff increments by ZESA, in which the situation sparked a dispute between the then ZESA chairman, Sidney Gata and Gono. Gata was then axed from his post- pushing the firm into more problems.

“The main problem is that the firm cannot provide enough power for everyone, at the moment.”

“Currently, there are two stations which are down at Hwange. The company is not able to attend to them because of lack of funds. This has reduced power output from Hwange,” he said.

Zimbabwe used to get power from South African firm-Eskom, and from Mozambique, apart from other countries such as Zambia.

South Africa and Mozambique have since cut supplies with Eskom indicating its country does not have enough whilst Mozambique cites pending debt settlements from its struggling neighbour.

The official adds owing to the Southern Africa power crisis, at the moment, the only hope for the stabilisation of the power situation in the country is to get an investor, especially for Hwange and Kariba power stations.

Currently, many people in residential areas now use firewood, as the cost of paraffin has risen sharply owing to the scarcity of the commodity. A bunch of firewood costs not less than $50 million dollars, of which a family needs a bunch to prepare one meal.

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