By ESAT,
The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO) has secretly continued to provide power per shifts, sources at told ESAT. For the most part, since mid June 2013 in Addis Abeba, power has been cutting for over three days and even more at times.
The power outage has put banks, airports, internet service providers and small and medium industries in a difficult position. Although officials of EEPCO have alleged the causes of the outages to technical problems, they have tacitly also admitted that the electricity per shift programs were underway because they cannot stratify the growing demands for electricity.
The Corporation may have preferred to keep the shifting program secret in order to calm down the criticisms it has been receiving for selling electricity for neighboring countries. ESAT has learnt that Ethiopia, which is in a crisis of power outages, receives around $2.1 million per month from the sale of 35-40Megawatt of electric power to Djibouti. Since last year, Ethiopia has been receiving income from the sale of electricity to Somaliland and the Moyale town of Kenya.
Officials of the EPPCO, who have been asked why it was necessary to export electricity when the domestic demand has not been yet fully satisfied, have been saying that they sell the “extra power” while during other occasions they say “if we are short of power, we will/can take it back”.
ESAT’s reporter said if a proper research was conducted, there would be no wonder that the money that the country is losing due to inactive local industries that are affected by the blackouts could exceed the money that is gained from the export of electricity. Many new industries have not started operation due to lack of electric power and those that started are making their employees redundant due to power outage related insolvencies.
