Secretary general of the Trade Union Congress of Namibia (TUCNA), Mahongora Kavihuha, on Thursday expressed concern over the prevailing high electricity costs.

His comments come after the announcement by the Electricity Control Board in May 2023 of an increase of 8.9 per cent for NamPower’s bulk electricity tariff (inclusive of generation and transmission), resulting in an increase from an average N.dollars 1.82 per kilowatt hour to N.dollars 1.99 per kilowatt-hour for the financial year 2023/24, effective 01 July 2023.

Speaking at a press conference at the TUCNA headquarters here, Kavihuha stated that Namibia, with all its potent robust and limitless potential to generate electricity and to even export excess electricity to neighbouring countries, cannot do so.

“We are importers of electricity, 71.2 per cent of the electricity that Namibia consumes is from its neighbouring countries and the rest of the electricity of about 28.8 per cent is produced locally, the bigger portion of it is being produced by the Ruacana Hydroelectric Plant, at 24 per cent,” he said.

These figures, he said are according to the Independent Power Producers (IPP)-Namibia Quarterly Economic Review in March 2023.

Kavihuha further said that the single most worrying thing is the absence of evidence indicating what the institutions responsible for the provision of electricity are doing, or whether whatever they are doing is nearly enough to fill the glaring gaps in the space of local energy provision.

The union secretary general stated that it is also obvious that over the few decades of its existence, NamPower has totally proven ineffectual in its duty to generate electricity from locally available and cheap resources starting from wind, sun, water and invader bush “that we have in annoying abundance” in the whole country.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency