The country’s power utility company, ZESCO has been advised to consider doing away with the rampant load shedding before trying to adjust its tariffs upwards.
Governance activist Bonny Tembo says there is no way the company can be thinking of adjusting the tariffs when it is not showing any signs of improvement.
Mr. Tembo tells QFM that ZESCO should only think of adjusting its tariffs once the problem of load shedding is sorted out because it is negatively impacting on the poor, especially those in the townships.
And Mr. Tembo has appealed to the Energy Regulation Board to put the interest of poor people first and compel ZESCO to stop the unnecessary load shedding.
Zesco has re-applied to the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) for an upward adjustment by November this year to enable it to collect adequate financial resources to maintain infrastructure.
If approved, metered residential tariffs with consumption of 100 to 300 kilowatts (KW) per hour will increase to K343.46 from K250.70 while consumption above 301KW will increase to K559.81 from K408.62 with fixed monthly charges increasing to over K20, 000 from the current K14, 629.
Prepaid energy charges will increase to K381 from K278.
QFM
IF ZESCO CAN’T MAKE MONEY WHILE THEY ARE THE ONLY GENERATOR AND SUPPLIER OF ELECTRICITY IN ZAMBIA THEN THEY ARE JUST A BUNCH I.D.I.O.T.S AND CAN’T EVEN MAKE A NGWEE WHEN EXPOSED TO COMPETITION. EVEN A FOOL WOULD KNOW THAT FIRST YOU IMPROVE THE PRODUCT AND THEN IF NECESSARY YOU START THINKING OF INCREASING IT’S PRICE. I WOULD ADVISE ALL CONSUMERS (ESPECIALLY DOMESTIC) TO SUSPEND USAGE OF THE COMMODITY FOR AT LEAST ONE WEEK IN PROTEST. LETS SEE WHAT IS MORE HURTING LOAD-SHADING OR BOY-COURTING THE COMMODITY.
FIRST PUBLISH YOU CORPORATE INCOME TO ALL,THEN CUT DOWN YOUR SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES ,THEN APPLY FOR ADJUSTMENT.OR BETTER STILL BORROW FROM CHINA AT LOW RATE.AT THE MOMENT IT IS HARD TO PAY YOUR BILLS AT THE PRESENT RATE WHAT MORE IF YOU INCREASE?
On this issue I wholly put the blame on ZESCO management for their shambolic public relations in putting their message across and why there is load-shedding and why they need to increase tariffs in the first place and what they are doing about it. ZESCO has put in place a business strategy that ensures sustainability of power supply, the business and the environment. Why isn’t the corporation not selling this strategy to the consumers and the masses to justify them wanting to increase the tariff? These selfsame strategies include the rehabilitation and upgrading of the existing hydro power plants, building of new power plants and associated transmission lines, and demand side mg’t.
Rehabilitation of Kariba North bank should be completed by now should increase generation capacity by 210MW, this should have reduced load shedding frequency by now. They say they are also building other Hydropower stations.Â
According to their website the corporation has planned or is undertaking to build several power plants at Kariba North Bank (extending the existing power station to increase capacity by 360 MW), at Itezhi Tezhi (new power station that will bring on board 120 MW) and at Kafue Gorge (i.e. the Kafue Gorge LowerÂ
Hydro project that will add another 750 MW)….has also planned to upgrade mini-hydro power stations at Lusiwasi increasing from 12 MW to 86 MW and at Lunzua should increase capacity from 0.7 MW to 14.4 MW.Â
All these projects they are aimed at ensuring adequate, reliable and secure power supply for environmentally sustainable development…..these investments require tariffs to be set at a level that generates sufficient revenues to pay back loans procured for system expansion. So far ZESCO is to contribute a total of US$ 830M towards the total cost of more than US$ 3.47 Billion required for new generation projects in the country.Â
In other words the tariffs being paid today are too low for them to undertake further investments to completely eliminate loadshedding, its important that the corporation gives exact project completion dates and updates to the consumers of any development in its projects which is lacking as shown by comments.
ZESCO PR Department please pull up your socks!!
ZESCO SHOULD BE PRIVATISED.THEY HAVE FAILED TO DELIVER.
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 kabebya
Privatise it but don’t complain when the foreign investor tribles the tariffs as what you are paying now is low….Â
its so uncomforting to note that inspite of the many water falls and natural rivers, zesco has failled to fully supply the currently with power and to put the last nail on a coffin they want to increase the price inspite of the power services, its like saying that give me a million for a finished bicycle which you know will not get you anyway but you will constantly need to stop cycling every after 6hours and try to fix it for two hours(two hours or
more zesco load shedding)
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