Tendai Matunhu
Minister of Energy and Power Development, Advocate Fortune Chasi has urged consumers to pay their electricity bills warning that Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) will cut off power supply to non-paying consumers.
“Zesa has a legal obligation to cut its loses. It cannot continue to supply power to people who do not pay. Switching off non-paying consumers is a real option. Be warned. This is regardless of what or who you are.
“I said it upon assumption of duty, let’s pay ZESA here. Let’s pay our external bills too. Simple as ABC,” he said
To avert the problem of non-payment, Minister Chasi said the installation of pre-paid metres was underway.
“Installation of meters has started with my own Energy Ministry. All Ministries to be metered. Power is not confetti. We must generate more and use responsibly. When we don’t pay we lose the moral at high ground to criticise ZESA.
“An important consideration in resolving our power situation is disengagement of as many consumers as possible from the grid. We plan to get as many Organisations on solar power during the day. Pension industry and banks should consider investment in the sector,” he said.
Minister Chasi went on to say that, “The tariff must be cost reflective. The current tariff bares no semblance whatsoever to the actual cost of procuring power. It must. There must be a new philosophy around the tariff. Cost reflectivity is an essential ingredient.
“Whilst this is a serious problem, it presents us with an opportunity to impress on renewables. Banks and pension funds will be incentivized to invest in this critical sector, both off grid and on.
“Once payments are done I will direct, as I have already done, that the cash goes towards generation related issues like coal and demand management of meters. All departments will have to be metered. Mine has already. This will be good for budgetary control too,” he said.
Zesa Holdings also expects to get an advance from Government, in a move expected to improve power generation. The Government, through its departments and local authorities owed ZESA about $600m. Government said it would issue Treasury Bills to clear that debt.
The government has been paying up what it owes ZESA. All in all, ZESA was owed over $1.2 billion by both the government and commercial and domestic users.
ZESA Holdings acting Group Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Chivaura revealed that the power company has been struggling with revenue collection. The rollout of prepaid meters helped with collection from commercial and domestic users, where they get to recover part of their debt with every purchase the users make.
Chivaura highlighted that they initiated the prepaid system, where customers pay in advance, part of the money goes to clear the old debt. So ZESA is recovering the old debt as well as the customer funding their requirements.
ZESA is also working on a strategy to migrate everyone to a prepaid platform so that they can manage the indebtedness with customers. Installation of smart meters which can talk to ZESA at a central point where we can switch off and switch on customers.
