Mining companies in Zimbabwe have been instructed to cut power consumption by 25% as a crippling power crisis that began last month intensifies. The directive this week from Energy and Power Development Minister Samuel Undenge came as a blow to a sector that is already grappling with weak global prices of commodities - likely to translate into lower foreign earnings for the largest contributor to Zimbabwe's GDP.Industry captains warn that it will be downhill from now on as the country's last few productive industries buckle under the power outages.The 25% reduction will affect several South Africa-linked mining firms that have operations in Zimbabwe, among them Zimplats, a unit of Impala Platinum; Mimosa, a 50-50 joint venture between Aquarius Platinum and Impala Platinum; and Unki Mine, owned by Anglo American Platinum.The mining firms have been identified as "large users of power", with the 25% reduction expected to free up nearly 25MW of electricity for distribution to the national grid.story_article_left1"Noting that there are some large users of power ... these are to be asked by the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company to drop load by up to 25% on the basis of existing contracts," Undenge said."It would be up to these large power users to decide on which areas of their operations to load-shed."Nationwide load-shedding, which lasts up to 18 hours a day, began last month.The government has said this was forced on it by low water levels at Kariba Dam.Zimbabwe shares electricity generated from Kariba with Zambia, which is also grappling with a power crisis.Power generation in Zimbabwe has fallen to 984MW, significantly short of the daily demand of 2200MW. Industries and local businesses have been most affected by the power cuts that run between 4am and 10pm daily.Busisa Moyo, the president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, the largest confluence of industries in the country, told the Sunday Times that the lack of power was likely to further raise the price of products, as manufacturers recover overheads over a smaller number of units."Industry is already at 30% to 36% capacity utilisation and this is likely to lower further. Manufacturing output increased by 1.6% year on year as per figures from the Ministry of Finance. This may be reversed or put into a decline if we do not address or mitigate the impact.story_article_right2"The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority needs to be more open, transparent and lucid about its cost structures, efficiencies and electricity losses," said Moyo.Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa declined to comment on the impact of the new load-shedding regulations as he was " in a meeting" .The worsening of the power crisis was further exposed this week when it emerged that the country's security establishment would for the first time not be exempt from the punishing load-shedding regime.Previously, the uniformed forces - the army and police - were among institutions spared from load-shedding.Other institutions that were exempted included hospitals, airports and the homes of the ruling elite.The opposition has taken the President Robert Mugabe-led government to task over the erratic power supplies, demanding that heads roll.Kurauone Chihwayi, spokesman for the smaller Movement for Democratic Change faction led by Welshman Ncube, said the Mugabe government was in panic mode."The announcement of stop-gap measures involving reduction of power supply to mining companies and other huge electricity consumers, and introducing load-shedding in central business districts and uniformed forces, shows the astounding lack of foresight and planning by government," he said...