‘Rid Zesa of bloated executives’

via ‘Rid Zesa of bloated executives’ – DailyNews Live by Ndakaziva Majaka  30 DECEMBER 2013

Zesa Holdings (Zesa) should get rid of bloated executives and boards who are squandering consumer money and instead upgrade electricity generation capacity, a leading residents lobby group said.

Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) director Precious Shumba yesterday told the Daily News on Sunday Zesa was coming up with excuses for failure to provide the service they exist to provide.

“Zesa has dismally failed to find a solution to persistent power shortages and always come up with excuses for their failure.

“What they must be doing is to end the looting of scarce financial resources by creating one progressive board to run the holding company,” Shumba said.

This comes as Zesa recently released a statement stating that load shedding is set to intensify following stalled the refurbishment of the Hwange Power Station.

“The load shedding has been necessitated by depressed electricity generation at Hwange Power Station due to a power system disturbance from Kafue Gorge,” the statement reads.

Domestic and industrial electricity consumers have attacked the power utility for failing to properly manage power distribution following the introduction of a massive load-shedding programme announced this weekend.

The consumer representative board, Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) however, appears in the dark about the development, despite its mandate to represent consumers.

“We are not aware of such a development, it has not yet come to our attention that the cuts are set to intensify however, you have to realise that although they affect consumers some of the cuts are warranted,” Rosemary Siyachitema, the CCZ director told the Daily News on Sunday.

In his end of year address last week, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai attributed the power shortages to Zanu PF’s failure to implement plans put in place to alleviate power shortages during the unity government.

“In the coalition government we put in place plans to get rid of the power shortages but the clueless government does not have any idea on how to complete the plans to internally increase power generation that we started to roll out as an inclusive government,

“After kicking the-then energy minister (Elton Mangoma), Zanu PF is now unable to implement the initial plans,” the former prime minister said.

Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) chief executive officer Engineer Gloria Magombo said several challenges were inhibiting optimum electricity generation.

Among the constraints are failing plant equipment, inadequate funding as well as skills and coal shortage.
“Yes, we have received complaints from customers about load-shedding and high incidents of faults which occur during the rainy season due to lightning, falling trees and lines,” she said.

Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president Kumbirai Katsande said most companies were operating below capacity owing to the latest round of load-shedding.

“The power cuts are affecting the operations of most industries,” he said adding that; “Some industries have resolved to buy emergency generators, but not everyone can afford to purchase one.”