Just called ZESA to check up on a fault from yesterday at 6am. He replied:

don’t stress about time

I am disgusted by the inconsiderate and divisive decisions that are being made to write off bills with ZESA and City of Harare. This is a very inhumane way of luring people to the dangerous trap of laziness and destroys good citizenship. Besides the economic dangers of forcing such a brainless policy in our local councils, here I will speak of the logical reasoning that is devoid of our authorities in writing off bills for residence.

The job of the government is to uplift the people and creating laziness and unfair treatment of its citizens is not part of it. My mother is unemployed but one thing that I know about her is that everyone in the house will only eat a decent meal after she has paid all her dues to the service providers. And this is how she is supposed to be acknowledged for her effort to stay within the confines of this country’s laws? So what is the government going to do with all these law abiding citizens that have been making sure that their bills have been paid in time? Are they trying to insinuate a point that these service providing institutions should not be respected and the new way of dealing with them is absconding bill payments because some political parties can take care of the bills? Are the good citizens going to feel as part of this system when the bad ones start bragging about how rewarding it is to be a free rider in this country?

Personally I take this initiative of scrapping off bills as an anti-people strategy which is only aimed at creating division and anger among people. Those remaining uncorrupted citizens are now quickly turned into the fast laned life of doing nothing but at the same time expecting much. I cannot stand to take in the fact that my parent has worked so hard to contribute to the well being of our societies and only to be belittled like this.

Government policies should be justifiable on a moral and fair basis and by any measure in the sight of a reasonable mind, writing off bills is just a way of rewarding criminals and persecuting good citizenship.

A subscriber saw this paraffin queue in Hatcliffe this weekend and sent in the above picture, commenting:

As the people in Hatcliffe gather to buy paraffin at the service station, the seller seemed to be ignorant and could not feel any passion for these people. Is it not because of the prolonged loadshedding?

Three headlines in today’s Herald newspaper paint a dark (sorry) picture for Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), already struggling with electricity demand that far outstrips supply, and frustrated customers who believe ZESA over charges them on bills – and under delivers on power.

• ZESA takes PM’s brother to court over bill (He’s certainly not the only one who hasn’t been paying,and ZESA complains that unpaid bills is part of why they can’t deliver service.
• ZESA workers threaten to switch off power (The lowest paid ZESA worker currently earns just $190 / month. They argue management has received pay increments, but not lower grade employees)
• Debt cripples Kariba Power Station ($21 million in debt, with $7.5 million in interest. Ouch. Meanwhile, outdated equipment at the power station runs up ever higher maintenance and repair bills.)

ZESA Holdings Group Stakeholder Relations Manager, Mr Fullard Gwasira clarified the new electricity tariffs In a telephone interview. He said that the 31% increase in tariff was not an increase in the overall charge to ZESA customers and the new tariff is structured as follows:

- The first 50 kWh had increased to 2.35c
- 51kWh to 300kWh will be charged at 11c
- Any usage over 300kWh will be charged at 15.c

Mr Gwasira said that with the new tariff they expected the average customer bill to be charged at 9.34c/ kWh. Since ZESA has removed the fixed monthly charge, this will translate to a marked reduction in charges to the customer, as long as they remain within expected usage parameters.

ZESA has changed its tariff scheme because the company is unable to sustain its operations. In the period 2009 to present the commodity prices of water, diesel and coal, all of which are required to generate power increased, but ZESA was not been able to raise its tariffs in order to compensate. Electricity in Zimbabwe was subsidised by the government through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, however, since dollarization, the RBZ has been unable to support ZESA operations leading the power supplier to operate at sub-economic levels. Other factors affecting electricity tariffs include the strengthening of the Rand against the US Dollar, as ZESA purchases power from South Africa and Mozambique, both countries are members of the Rand monetary Union. Further there had been no inflation adjustments to the price of electricity.

Mr Gwasira went on to say that on the 1st January 2009 ZESA had written off customer bills that were unpaid prior to this date.

View the tariff schedule here

Electricity consumers may soon see a welcome credit to their accounts, following the resolution of an outstanding argument between consumers and ZESA dating back to 2009.

According to The Herald 13 July, “Zimbabwe Electricity Authority is now required to revert to the US$40 per month for consumers in low-density areas and US$30 per month for high-density consumers for the period between February 1 and November 30, 2009 as directed by Government.”

This was ordered by Justice Susan Mavangira at the High Court on Monday 11th July 2011. Since the change over of the currency to the US dollar people have complained over the manner in which ZESA was handling its billing for electricity usage. The Competition and Tariffs Commission conducted investigations based on these complains from the customers and filed an application.

All those customers who had paid for electricity usage in US dollars before February 2009 will have the amounts credited to their accounts.

But before I can start to celebrate over the recent High Court ruling on ZESA let me alert people to the mid year statement made by the Zimbabwe Power Company Chairman, which amongst other things warns the country about an upcoming tariff increase.