by Tendai Matunhu

Government has urged the public to play its part in energy efficiency by saving power, recording and reporting all vandalism of electricity property as well as reporting any corrupt activities.

Speaking to this publication recently, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Dr Gloria Magombo said the public just like Government and Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), had an important role to play in saving energy. She encouraged the public to utilise and manage energy efficiently.

Dr Magombo said people should learn to report faults and accidents, and should be involved in the policing and exposing of anyone short changing and with bad behaviour such as vandalism of transformers as well as reporting all corrupt ZESA officials.

On the issue of infrastructure vandalism, she said people should realise that it was not possible to replace transformers overnight, but the process takes up to three months. She went on to say that her Ministry is pushing for the amendment of the Electricity Act which should make it mandatory for the imprisonment of vandals for up to 20 years or more in prison. In addition, Dr Magombo encouraged citizens to have a sense of ownership for the infrastructure.

On another note, Dr Magombo said the Ministry would be launching a renewable energy policy soon. She said as the ministry, they were encouraging individuals and companies with solar power to start net metering system where they feed excess solar power into the national grid.