Energy Sector Workers Union of Zimbabwe has called on the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) to account for all prepaid meters installed and justify why the parastatal continue to make losses when it had monopoly over power distribution in the country.
In an interview with 263Chat, ESWUZ General Secretary, Gibson Mushunje accused ZESA of failing to account for prepaid meters on the ground, a move he said was responsible for the company’s shrinking revenue base “there is need to account for all the meters that are on the ground for example between 2009 and 2010, ZESA was getting about $19 million from Harare East District per month.
“Now despite that there are new additions they are getting less than that which clearly shows that the customer base has not shrunk but rather the revenue base.
“They called private contractors to install pre-paid meters and the contractors are not even qualified than the staff at ZESA.”
He further accused the company of contracting bogus companies who supplied defective prepaid meters and approving equipment that had not been tested.
“The tricky surrounding the prepaid meters, they use contractors and now it’s on record that the meters were defective and by-passed by the contractors without passing through a legitimate procedure and they were not tested by Engineer Chisina.
“The reason was that Chisina is not made aware of those meters and the reason for not wanting him to know is to make sure that they are not put on record,” said Mushunje.
He voiced his concern against tariff increases, calling for due diligence and accountability of the current prepaid meters installed across the country.
“So we are saying we don’t want to see any tariff increase now and due diligence must be done to see whether we are collecting 100% per month, to account for all the meters.
“ZESA is the only company that generate, transmit, distribute electricity in Zimbabwe, there is no way a monopoly can make losses,” said Mushunje.
