By Innocent Mujeri
……as the new Act propose 30 year jail term for vandals.
Cabinet on Tuesday approved amendments to the Electricity Act which will see criminals convicted of vandalising electricity infrastructure being incarcerated for a period of 30 years, Harare Post can report.
The Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa, revealed this during a post-cabinet media briefing yesterday.
“Cabinet considered and approved the Principles for the Proposed Amendment to the Electricity Act [Chapter 13:19] to introduce stiffer penalties for crimes related to Electricity theft, the destruction of and tampering with electricity infrastructure, which was presented by the Minister of Energy and Power Development.” Minister Mutsvangwa said.
The new amendments will see crimes related to vandalism of electricity infrastructure being categorised the same as other heinous crimes such as rape and murder.
According to the approved Electricity Act, the Zimbabwean courts will be compelled to impose mandatory sentences, as opposed to the option of fines, which may not be deterrent enough.
For instance, tampering without lawful excuse with any apparatus for generating, transmitting, distributing or supplying electricity with the result that any supply of electricity is cut off or interrupted, which used to attract not less than 10 years, will under the amended law attract not less than 30 years imprisonment.
This publication also learnt that Government will periodically continue to review such penalties to make them more deterrent to would-be offenders.
Over and above the stiffer penalties, Government will also ensure that adequate surveillance machinery is put in place to apprehend offenders, through the installation of electronic gadgets to detect the crimes.
Vandalism of electricity infrastructure has been on the rise and to date a total of 2 171 transformers have either been vandalized or stolen in the country, presenting difficulties for the supply of power to households and industry.
