News / National
ZEDTC giving away $10 million in free electricity annually
11 May 2015 at 16:55hrs | Views
The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company is giving out more than $10 million to employees, pensioners and officials in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development in free electricity every year.
This comes at a time when the power utility is struggling to meet energy demand due to a huge debt overhang.
ZETDC is owed close to $1 billion by consumers despite the initiatives put in place by the utility to recover some of these debts over the past several years.
The firm's managing director Engineer Julian Chinembiri told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy that more than 5 000 employees and former employees each get 1 500 units of electricity every month while an undisclosed number of ministry officials also receive about 1 060 units each month.
"Zesa employees are getting $160 worth of units per month and the ministry officials are getting $100 worth of units. This is a condition of service. It doesn't mean when someone has given us a service for more than 30 years, we should cut them off the benefits. We should respect people who have given a service to ZETDC," he said.
He said management receives the same amount of electricity as the employees while those who are still on post-paid metres only receive the amount of electricity they have consumed in that particular month.
Eng. Chinembiri said the benefit is also meant to motivate their employees and deter them from stealing the electricity.
"We also need to look at the human aspect of our business that they (employees) need to be motivated. And these are the same people who know how to steal electricity. So if you can give somebody and then he steals, that would be wrong (sic). And this money is a taxable benefit as well," he added.
The power utility is owed $299 million by domestic consumers while the commercial debt stands at $351 million.
Mining and industry sector players owe $244,3 million contributing 30 percent of the total debt and Agriculture owes $75 million.The company introduced the prepaid metres in a bid to curb free usage of power by some of its clients.
So far, ZETDC has installed 537 999 prepaid metres and Eng. Chinembiri said this has saved the utility 103 megawatt to date.
He said approximately 87 539 consumers are still on post-paid metres, mostly in old suburbs like Mbare, Mufakose and Epworth, where consumers have looped connections with one service feeding more than one house and conversion to prepaid is not possible before the connections are separated.
This comes at a time when the power utility is struggling to meet energy demand due to a huge debt overhang.
ZETDC is owed close to $1 billion by consumers despite the initiatives put in place by the utility to recover some of these debts over the past several years.
The firm's managing director Engineer Julian Chinembiri told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy that more than 5 000 employees and former employees each get 1 500 units of electricity every month while an undisclosed number of ministry officials also receive about 1 060 units each month.
"Zesa employees are getting $160 worth of units per month and the ministry officials are getting $100 worth of units. This is a condition of service. It doesn't mean when someone has given us a service for more than 30 years, we should cut them off the benefits. We should respect people who have given a service to ZETDC," he said.
He said management receives the same amount of electricity as the employees while those who are still on post-paid metres only receive the amount of electricity they have consumed in that particular month.
Eng. Chinembiri said the benefit is also meant to motivate their employees and deter them from stealing the electricity.
"We also need to look at the human aspect of our business that they (employees) need to be motivated. And these are the same people who know how to steal electricity. So if you can give somebody and then he steals, that would be wrong (sic). And this money is a taxable benefit as well," he added.
The power utility is owed $299 million by domestic consumers while the commercial debt stands at $351 million.
Mining and industry sector players owe $244,3 million contributing 30 percent of the total debt and Agriculture owes $75 million.The company introduced the prepaid metres in a bid to curb free usage of power by some of its clients.
So far, ZETDC has installed 537 999 prepaid metres and Eng. Chinembiri said this has saved the utility 103 megawatt to date.
He said approximately 87 539 consumers are still on post-paid metres, mostly in old suburbs like Mbare, Mufakose and Epworth, where consumers have looped connections with one service feeding more than one house and conversion to prepaid is not possible before the connections are separated.
Source - BH24
