The Parliament of Zimbabwe has apologised to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the nation after a power outage disrupted his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Tuesday.
In a statement issued by the Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda, the legislative body said it sincerely regrets the incident which left parts of the address being delivered without electricity.
“The Parliament of the Republic of Zimbabwe sincerely regrets the loss of power supplies during the State of the Nation Address by His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Cde Dr. E.D. Mnangagwa… and offers sincere apologies to His Excellency the President and to the Nation of Zimbabwe,” Chokuda said.
He explained that the power failure occurred while the Parliament building was running on a generator as the main source of supply with power utility ZESA on standby.
Preliminary investigations, he added, revealed that a circuit breaker supplying the load had tripped.
“When supplies were lost, the generator was still running but not supplying power,” Chokuda said, noting that the restoration process took longer than expected resulting in part of the President’s address being delivered without power.
The Parliament said it is working with the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, ZESA and other government agencies to investigate the incident and prevent future occurrences.
“The Parliament of Zimbabwe, the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, ZESA and other Government Agencies are investigating the incident and will report to the Nation what transpired as well as put in place measures to avoid recurrence,” Chokuda added.
The outage drew widespread attention as President Mnangagwa was delivering one of the most closely watched speeches of the year setting out the government’s legislative agenda and national priorities.
While full details of the technical failure are yet to be made public, the episode has sparked renewed questions about the reliability of power supply at the new Parliament building.
Last year another power outage occurred whilst Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube was presenting the national budget.
Power utility ZESA said the blackout was as a result of lightning.
