By JOHN SAKALA
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on President Edgar Lungu to remove taxes on all renewable energy sources in order to reduce pressure on the national power grid.
NDC Copperbelt Chairperson Chipoka Mulenga has advised President Lungu to quickly intervene into the power deficit by scrapping off taxes on all renewable energy products.
“Let government subsidize or remove all taxes on renewable energy sources. This will make every middle class household to afford renewable energy sources. This will in turn lessen the pressure on the national grid power since only industrial production sectors will be most benefactor.
“As it stands, domestic and industry demand is on one system which is Kariba hydro!,” he said.
He laughed at rhetoric remarks from Energy Minister who claimed Zambia is conserving tapping water from the Congo river into the Zambezi river.
Mr Mulenga implored President Lungu to take up the mental because PF leadership was clueless on how to mitigate and alleviate the power deficit.
The distance between the Zambezi River and the Congo River is 2,114 kilometres, making the project unattainable.
“The few things which the Minister of Energy never checked were basic facts such as the distance between the two rivers, where do each of those rivers flow? Who has authority over each of the rivers? Like the Zambezi river is managed by three countries, namely Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique which has the Cahora Bassa power station tapping water from the same river.
“The Zambezi river starts from Kalene Hills in Mwinilunga and flows into Indian Ocean. In short it is North to South. On the other Congo river gets its source from the highlands of north-east of Zambia as well as Lake Tanganyika and Lake Mweru. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Banane, within the Democratic Republic of Congo. In short it is South to North. So how can rivers that flows into two opposite directions be used to tap into each other to improve water levels in Kariba? He wondered.
Mr Mulenga said that even if the project was workable, the DRC cannot allow the Zambian government to tap water from the source of a river which is more like drying a river.
He said the tapping of water from Congo river would also require huge sums of money to compensate families for relocation to pave way for canals.
