Energy minister Fortune Chasi has read the riot act to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) after residents failed to purchase electricity tokens for the greater part of this week following a technical hiccup at the power utility’s vending system.
By Tatenda Chitagu
Chasi threatened to fire the company subcontracted by Zesa for electricity vending and purchasing.
“Failure by residents to buy electricity tokens is happening month-in, month-out,” Chasi said at a maize seed fieldday held at Mwenezana Estate on Thursday where he had accompanied Vice-President Constantine Chiwenga.
“I receive inquiries from the public after they fail to buy electricity tokens every first week of the new month. This has left the public inconvenienced. This must come to an end.”
Chasi added; “I will be meeting Zesa and the private contractor running the vending system who has failed to deliver. The contractor must shape up or ship out.
“Zesa gets money from the tokens. The contractor gets money from the tokens, but fails to deliver. It is coming to an end.”
He also revealed that farmers who were into winter wheat farming, but with arrears with the power utility will not be disconnected.
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“We will not switch off farmers that are into winter wheat farming. However, we advise those with credits to do payment plans with Zesa. We cannot import wheat after switching off winter wheat farmers,” Chasi said. He decried vandalism of electricity infrastructure, railways lines and TelOne infrastructure, which he said had crippled the systems of the parastatals involved.
