It also said that everything is being done to minimise the fallout from South Africa's electricity shortage, which currently prevents it from exporting power to its neighbours.

"We will do everything to let Namibia retain its economic growth," NamPower Managing Director Paulinus Shilamba told members of the business community at a breakfast meeting in Windhoek, organised by the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI).

"We will also look into the possibility of leasing or buying smaller diesel generators of say 50 mega watts (MW), but they cost about N$250 million each.

To maintain them with diesel 24 hours per day would cost three times more than the N$ 1 million per day for the coal-fired Van Eck power station outside Windhoek," Shilamba added.

The construction of a 970 kilometre power line to the Caprivi Region would start soon and a link to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana would be completed by the middle of 2009 and commissioned in August or September that year, the NamPower MD said.

This N$3 billion interconnector will enable Namibia and its three neighbours bordering on the Caprivi Region to sell power to each other - something which is also called power wheeling.

"Power availability is not a problem, but transmitting power to where it is needed is," said Shilamba.

He noted that Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had enough electricity to sell to their neighbours, but the regional electricity grid was not yet completed or ring-fenced, as experts call it.

Namibia had to look for an extra 200 MW to fulfil its electricity requirements by 2010, the NamPower boss explained.

"South Africa will use all its power for the Soccer World Cup in that year and will not be in a position to supply to us."

Zimbabwe is expected to supply Namibia with about 150 MW from its Hwange coal-fired power station by the end of this year.

Shilamba informed the business community that most of the power would have to be in place for uranium mines, which would need 280 MW by 2010, up from 115 MW presently.

The new mines - Valencia, Ida Dome and Goanikontes in the Erongo Region - would each require 40 MW, and Trekkopje 70 MW, while Roessing would need 70 MW by next year, up from 35 MW.

The second existing uranium mine, Langer Heinrich, which started production 14 months ago, would increase its electricity demand from 13,5 to 30 MW by 2010.

"We are in daily contact with all the mining companies in Namibia and once the envisaged load shedding starts, we will inform them,"Shilamba emphasised.

NCCI President Inge Zaamwani, who is also the Managing Director of diamond mining company Namdeb, told the gathering that Namdeb had been running at 60 per cent capacity since last weekend as it was directly linked to the South African power grid through that country's electricity utility Eskom.

"We received basically the same letter the South African mining companies got from Eskom, namely to halt production due to a lack of electricity supply capacity," Zaamwani said.

"We have some generators of our own, so we are managing at 60 per cent diamond production."

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