Martin Endjala
Tsumeb has been plagued by persistent power outages over the past few days, sparking frustration among residents, farmers, and businesses.
However, attempts to get answers from the Central North Regional Electricity Distributor (CENORED) have yielded no response.
Walter Carelse, manager of Goal Maize factory, expressed his concerns in an interview with the Windhoek Observer on Tuesday.
According to Carelse, the outages, which began last week, have severely disrupted operations.
“The power has been on and off for the past few days. On Saturday, it was off the entire day and only came back the next day, and then on Monday, it went off at night. This keeps happening almost every day. This is affecting our production and damaging our equipment. I tried calling CENSORED, but no answer,” said Carelse.
Carelse noted that the outages have left some factory computers inoperative and compressors at a standstill.
The factory is currently producing maize meal for the government’s drought-relief food parcel initiative, and he fears the continued disruptions will significantly impact production.
“CENORED seems to know what the problem is but is not coming out to tell the people what the problem is exactly, and there was no communication on the power outage. To allow farmers, businesses and residents to prepare themselves,” he said.
Efforts by the Windhoek Observer to get a response from CENORED were unsuccessful. Chali Matengu, CENORED’s communications manager, did not respond to phone calls or questions, and the Chief Executive Officer was reportedly out of the office.
Tsumeb-based activist, Johannes John highlighted that power outages have long been an issue in the town.
“In the past, the situation was worse, but it improved after residents raised their concerns. Now, it’s happening again,” John said.
Tsumeb constituency councillor Gotty Ndjendjela directed questions in this regard to CENORED.
