26 March 2025
Yesterday I woke up to no power, 19-year-old nightmare that is Botswana’s load-shedding headache. That same evening, we were hit again, on and off, with absolutely no regard for our devices and appliances. This isn’t an isolated occurrence, it’s commonplace. Welcome to 2025 Botswana. Lately, load-shedding has reared its ugly head with a vengeance.
State-owned Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) issues a load-shedding schedule but doesn’t even follow it, hitting different areas randomly at will. BPC calls it power interruption or load management. Many would cynically tell you if it walks and talks like load-shedding, it’s load-shedding, pure and simple. We’re being told the Morupule B power station has collapsed. AGAIN. You’d be forgiven for thinking we’d teleported to the Stone Ages.
Back in 2006, I was living in the UK when I came home with my English husband to what was then a strange phenomenon to me: load-shedding. My husband fell desperately in love with Botswana. As such, in 2013, we made the move to Botswana. In 2014, Botswana was one big mess; the load-shedding had escalated. To add salt to injury, we were on severe water rations as well.
And so it continued until now, where we’re still singing the same tune. Slap on a plaster, wash, rinse, repeat, that’s all BPC does from year to year. Since I’ve been back home, load-shedding has never gone away, except instead of reliably supplying us with power, BPC has been hard at work coming up with a catalogue of generic excuses they recycle – maintenance (scheduled, unplanned), replacing rotten poles year in year out (what types of poles do these people use, are they not treated??), load management, power interruption, Morupule B being down (eh, what’s this issue that can’t be resolved??). Newsflash, all these excuses boil down to one thing: LOAD-SHEDDING. They can dress it up as whatever they want to bamboozle us, but we see it for what it is.
Morupule B is a constant albatross around our necks. We hear it gets overloaded. Botswana’s population is a mere 2.6 million or thereabouts, depending on who you talk to. Can this useless plant not be expanded to account for more demand? If the Chinese contractors can’t hack it, where are the initial European ones who were contracted to draw up the plans before the government unceremoniously dumped them in favour of the Chinese? Just too many mind-boggling questions. A classic case of you get what you pay for.
With the amount of maintenance BPC supposedly carries out, you’d think their service would work like a well-oiled machine. In all the 14 years I lived abroad (Italy, then the UK), I never experienced any power outage. NOT ONCE. And given the infamous British weather, that’s really saying something!
Yet I believe they routinely do maintenance work, which brings me to yet another irksome issue. With the slightest breeze or threat of thunder, BPC power collapses. Sometimes it even goes in anticipation of a storm, like wow, what a clever system, right!?!
Successive administrations have failed dismally to correct the water and power issues, and with all due respect, they ought to hang their heads in shame. At some point, BPC had a German CEO, Stefan Schwarzfischer, and for some time, there appeared to be a sharp drop in load-shedding. I remember President Ian Khama even proclaiming there’d be an end to load-shedding. Well, more fool me because, like a mug, I fell for that lie!
No political appetite for solar?
Just when we thought load-shedding was behind us, out of nowhere, Schwarzfischer left, and things slowly reverted to the dreaded dark times, with places like Maun plunged into darkness almost every, single day. Shortly after Schwarzfischer’s departure, we had a discussion with a few BPC technicians we’d called out for a fault, and even they despaired, admitting things were miles better under the German CEO, that with him at the helm, there’d been hope of sorting out the mess that is BPC. Curious as to why Schwarzfischer suddenly left, we did a little digging elsewhere, and a little birdie told us he’d wanted to throw everything at solar power generation but was met with immense resistance from the government. That being a lost cause, he had to leave.
This begs the question, but why!? Over the years, successive administrations have dragged their feet on resolving the power issue. Let’s face it, with Botswana being plagued by long drought spells owing to it being semi-arid, you could begrudgingly forgive the severe water shortages that refuse to go away. But even then, it’s just ridiculous in 2025. Something has to give. As for the apparent reluctance to take advantage of the over 300 days of sunshine Botswana is blessed with? BAFFLING, even disgraceful. Some might say unforgivable.
The shortcomings
What’s worse is that BPC fails to communicate effectively. Sometimes there are warnings, other times it’s radio silence. This year, they’ve taken to sharing a load-shedding – sorry, load management – schedule. But they don’t even stick to it! Some places on the schedule are not affected yet others are hit like crazy. Some are hit more often than others. There’s just no rhyme or reason.
Then there’s the accountability or lack thereof. Is anyone at BPC ever held to account? How can it be business as usual when you and me, the taxpayers, continue to bankroll this incompetency?
Batswana have an expression they like to parrot, we can do it ourselves, we don’t need foreigners. Yeah well, go figure! And where does the Ministry of Minerals and Energy fit in in all of this? And what of the government, every successive president? Do they all think it’s ok to carry on in this fashion? Unbelievable.
A missed opportunity?
Some retailers do sell various backup devices, but if they came from BPC, it’d be much easier, and there’d be no trust issues. As it stands, we’re on our own, and BPC doesn’t appear bothered. Possibly because they have the monopoly, and we the customers don’t have anywhere to turn except to look to BPC to up their game.
Exactly why successive regimes have refused to invest heavily in solar is anyone’s guess. Seeing as none of them has ever declared this a national disaster and given us the answers we need, most people strongly feel it may well have to do with corruption. Maybe, just maybe, they felt it was too expensive. That being the case, it would clearly take away from the pot of money they were busy stealing from to line their already bloated pockets; businesses, hospitals and clinics, students, remote workers and the general public be damned!
Do these people even know what a remote worker is? Do they even care about the level of destruction, the loss of refrigerated perishables that nobody can ill afford to lose in these difficult times, the loss of work and possibly lives, the damage to our appliances and devices, the inconvenience, reputational damage because you keep having to let clients down and so on? Doubtful.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be business as usual. These so-called leaders would be bending over backwards, seeking out the best possible solutions for this 19-year power disaster. I mean, how do you entice investors to come to Botswana when you can’t even keep the lights on?? These leaders ought to have a word with South Africa because as we speak, investors are shipping out of the country, in part, due to the incessant load-shedding.
And in case they need educating or even care, here’s how load-shedding affects us, the country, and the economy in general. Load-shedding significantly impacts the economy by leading to reduced productivity, increased business costs, and potentially hindering economic growth through factors like layoffs, reduced government revenue, and increased prices
A more detailed breakdown…
Reduced productivity and increased costs: Businesses struggle to operate efficiently due to unreliable power, forcing them to rely on expensive backup generators or cut right back on operations. This leads to decreased output, increased production costs, and potentially higher prices for consumers.
Hampered economic: Businesses can start laying off employees, leading to a loss of income, and further impacting the economy. Reduced government revenue and foreign exchange can also occur. The overall effect is a negative impact on economic growth and the welfare of citizens.
Impact on specific sectors…
Education: Schools, especially those relying on technology, struggle to maintain effective learning environments, potentially leading to poor grades and learning disruptions.
Businesses: Businesses, especially those in the manufacturing and service sectors, suffer from reduced productivity and increased costs, which could result in job losses.
Consumers: Load-shedding can cause prices for basic goods and services to skyrocket, impacting the affordability of essential items.
The takeaway
Brace yourselves, people, because this run of load-shedding sessions feels worse and could linger around like a nasty fart. We used to joke about the golden trio – we would say it was a good day in Botswana if we woke up to find we had water, power and the internet. But on a serious note, this isn’t funny. Something’s gotta give.
You know it’s serious when Batswana say this nightmare could be the yardstick with which to measure government performance, on the basis of which they will decide which party to go with, come election time. You know people are fed up when they feel they’d be best off leaving the country to escape persistent third-world problems that they feel can be resolved.
This year, I feel like things could really escalate to South African levels where power outages can run for days. If you can afford it, and you don’t plan to leave Botswana, do yourselves a favour and get yourselves backup systems. As freelancers, years ago, my husband and I figured we couldn’t rely on BPC if we were to serve our clients uninterrupted and keep our reputations intact by getting ourselves a simple but effective inverter backup system.
Quite frankly, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. We only wish we could afford a more sophisticated version, which we continue to look for. We are wary of importing it because BURS would be lying in wait to hit us in the pocket, but somehow, we’ll find a way because as much as we hate to admit it, the power issue doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Written by YourBotswana writer
Mpho Ashworth
