Harare town clerk Tendai Mahachi last week told mayor Muchadeyi Masunda to apply brakes on his drive to reclaim the Harare Thermal Power Station arguing the city had to get funding first.
Masunda is pushing council to reclaim the Harare Thermal Power Station saying the local authority had the capacity to end the power blues in the capital as a result of Zesa’s failure to address the perennial power blackouts.
Mahachi told visiting Bulawayo councillors that Zesa was willing to give back the power station to the city, but the local authority must first get its funding priorities right.
“Zesa is willing to give us back the power station, but I am saying to the mayor, ‘Hold on, and let’s take it easy. What will we get back as we have to consider the technology is old and we want to know the funding part so that we know what we are doing’,” he said.
Mahachi said the city fathers should consider benefits for the local authority and the residents before engaging in the move.
Masunda, however, recently told residents the city was fighting to reclaim the power station saying they had the better capacity to generate electricity for the city than Zesa was doing.
“All people with grey hair like me know the Harare Thermal Power station was taken from the city in 1980 and has been run down.
“We want to retain that station to meet the needs of everybody. The biggest problem people have is power and I don’t think government is in a position to do anything about it,” Masunda told residents in Mount Pleasant last week.
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Zesa has been slammed by residents for failure to supply adequate power and the utility’s spokesperson Fullard Gwasira conceded they were facing challenges that could not be solved by residents boycotting paying rates.
The power utility raised its rates by 31% drawing the ire of civic society organisations who have threatened to boycott paying their rates.
