Zesa has no capacity to read meters

Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), a subsidiary of Zesa commercial director Enock Ncube has said the power utility used estimates for power usage by farmers because the company had no resources to read their meters.

Ncube told a Parliamentary Thematic Committee on Peace and Security that they did not use customers' vehicles when they had no transport, despite offers made by farmers whose farms ZETDC officials said were not easily accessible for actual meter reading.

"We don't have resources. We didn't have resources to go to farming areas such as Magunje and Karoi," he said.

Senators expressed concern that the Zesa subsidiary did not trust farmers to do their own meter reading, so billing could be based on actual power usage.

They suggested that the power utility could use stop orders to recover their money from farmers rather than disrupt production if someone had not yet paid.

"You can stop order our wheat against your bills because it's bought by the government," suggested Murehwa senator Tendai Makunde.

The legislators also accused ZEDTC of not adhering to its own load shedding schedule provided to farmers, highlighting that sometimes farmers would only have power between 10pm and 3am, during which time they would only be able to start up the irrigation equipment.

Ncube said they had meetings with farmers across the country and agreed to use stop orders and said if farmers were unhappy with the power utility's estimates, they should discuss the matter.

"Those who think they have been unfairly treated, must come to us and we will talk about it.

"We had pre-season talks with farmer organisations like ZCFU and we still want to talk to farmers," he said.

Senators agreed that ZEDTC needed to revamp the customer relations department so they could have cordial relations with their customers.

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