10-10-5-3-3-11 LIES: WHY UPND’S 10,000 MW POWER GENERATION PROMISE IS A ‘PUNKA’ STORY
By Zambian Whistleblower
Dictator Hakainde Hichilema must really believe that all Zambians are gullible like his Praise Singers and sycophants around him.
If he had respect for Zambians, he would have stopped telling lies especially after achieving nothing. Sadly he is back again this time trotting out the “10-10-5-3-3-11” slogan ahead of the 2026 elections.
The electricity leg of this vision, promising to grow Zambia’s power generation capacity to 10,000 MW is being sold as a grand transformation. In reality, it is a ‘punka’ (fake) story built on the completion of projects funded and started under the previous PF government, modest new additions that fall far short of what is needed, and policy changes that are designed more to weaken ZESCO for the benefit of companies of connected elites than to deliver reliable power to ordinary Zambians
Let us look at the numbers without spin.
Zambia’s installed capacity stood at roughly 3,316–3,318 MW when the UPND took over in August/September 2021. By 2024 it had reached 3,871 MW, with some reports putting mid-2025 figures around 3,986 MW. That is an increase of only about 550–670 MW in nearly five years.
The single biggest addition during this period is the 750 MW Kafue Gorge Lower hydropower plant, whose Construction began in November 2015 under the PF government. The first unit was already commissioned in July 2021, still under PF. The UPND merely completed and officially commissioned the remaining units in 2023. Without this inherited project, UPND’s capacity growth would be even smaller.
Other notable plants frequently credited to the current government tell the same story:
• Bangweulu (54 MW) and Ngonye (34 MW) solar plants were tendered, awarded, and largely commissioned in 2019 under PF.
• The Kariba North extensions, Itezhi-Tezhi (120 MW), and several small hydro upgrades were also PF initiatives.
What UPND can genuinely claim as its own new generation capacity is limited mostly to incremental solar expansions, particularly Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) solar plants in Kitwe (expanded toward 94 MW) and a handful of smaller solar and mini-grid projects.
These additions are real, but they are in the tens of megawatts not the hundreds or thousands required to move the needle meaningfully toward 10 GW. And these are mostly being pushed by Dictator Hichilema’s inner circle.
To reach 10,000 MW by 2030, Zambia needs to add roughly 6,000–6,200 MW in the next four years. That is an average of 1.2–1.5 GW per year.
Historical performance shows this pace is unrealistic:
• Under PF (roughly 10 years), net addition was around 1,300–1,550 MW.
• Under UPND so far (nearly 5 years), net addition beyond PF-completed projects is in the low hundreds of megawatts, mostly solar.
Even with the Open Access policy and Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the pipeline of truly new, shovel-ready projects that are fully financed and independent of previous administrations is thin. Large hydro projects take 5–10 years. While solar can be faster, financing, grid connection, land acquisition, and bankable PPAs have repeatedly delayed projects.
The government’s own IRP and National Energy Compact acknowledge that most of the investment must come from the private sector. Yet ZESCO’s financial distress, accumulated arrears, and past disputes over power purchase agreements continue to scare off credible investors. The modest solar gains under UPND have not changed this fundamental reality.
Recent history already shows the gap between rhetoric and reality. Zambia has suffered extended load shedding, including periods of up to 24 hours largely due to drought affecting hydro plants. Adding a few hundred megawatts of solar while the backbone remains vulnerable does not solve the structural problem.
If current trends continue slow addition of truly new capacity, continued drought risk, and transmission/distribution bottlenecks a realistic projection is worse load shedding, potentially stretching toward 48 hours in bad seasons, rather than the end of power cuts promised in the 10-10-5-3-3-11 slogan.
Beyond generation numbers, critics point to the UPND’s broader energy policy direction.
The aggressive push for Open Access, unbundling talk, and opening the sector to private players is presented as reform. In practice, many Zambians see it as an attempt to weaken the state utility so that well-connected individuals and companies can profit from generation, trading, and distribution while ordinary citizens continue to pay high tariffs and endure blackouts.
ZESCO has been the backbone of Zambia’s power sector for decades. Instead of fixing it through better management, cost-reflective tariffs, and clearing arrears, the focus appears to be on creating space for well-connected private interests. This approach risks leaving the country with a fragmented system where profits are privatized and losses (plus load shedding) remain socialized.
Zambians have already lived through painful load shedding under this administration. Promising transformation while the fundamentals point toward continued or worsening shortages is not vision it is punka politics. Dictator Hichilema and the UPND are recycling big numbers to win votes, but the data shows the emperor has very little new clothes when it comes to power generation.
The 10-10-5-3-3-11 electricity promise remains exactly what many Zambians already suspect: another election-time punka story. https://zambianwhistleblower.com/
John 8:32 “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
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