By Staff Reporter
Bulawayo – A sudden power outage disrupted proceedings at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) on Wednesday, delaying Vice President Constantino Chiwenga’s highly anticipated speech by 15 minutes and prompting swift apologies from organisers.
Industry and Trade Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu had just invited Chiwenga to the podium at the Zimbabwe International Business Conference when the venue was plunged into darkness.
Chiwenga remained seated during the interruption, which saw power briefly return after five minutes before cutting out again. Electricity was eventually restored via a backup generator after approximately ten minutes.
“I want to sincerely apologise to our guest of honour (Chiwenga) for the technical fault we are experiencing and want to extend the same apology to you all,” Ndlovu told the audience, which included foreign delegates.
ZITF chairperson Busisa Moyo, later attributed the blackout to “an unexpected fault on the power line into the fairgrounds.”
He explained that the conference’s backup generator supplied by ZETDC had also failed during the incident.
“We seem to be experiencing an overload on the normal power line.
“The conference backup generator from ZETDC that had been running since morning also developed a technical fault.
“The ZETDC technicians worked to resolve the technical fault and restored power,” said Moyo.
“The ZITF board and management wish to apologise for the inconvenience caused. Efforts to upgrade our facility into a smart city includes solarising all our exhibition halls,” he added, noting that “everybody said ‘we forgive you’.”
Chiwenga made no mention of the outage during his speech.
Zimbabwe continues to experience widespread power cuts, often lasting up to eight hours daily, due to low water levels at Kariba and frequent equipment failures at Hwange.
The 65th edition of the ZITF runs from April 21 to 26, with Mozambican President Daniel Chapo scheduled to officially open the event on Saturday.
