Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Obert Chifamba
8 July 2009
Harare — THE Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority has acquired 100 motor bikes to ensure and guarantee mobility in meter reading by officers, group chief executive Engineer Ben Rafemoyo has said.
The power utility's billing operations had been grossly crippled in the past by transport problems as most of its vehicles were obsolete and could not be used for the purpose.
Billing had been based on estimates, which had generated a lot of problems with consumers feeling that they were being cheated, particularly in view of incessant power cuts.
"The bikes have already been distributed to different stations across the country with Harare getting the lion's share of 45 which will also be shared among its four districts and Chitungwiza.
"As we speak the bikes are already in the field and consumers should expect bills from meter reading from now onwards," said Eng Rafemoyo.
The power utility was also failing to meet its
promises to have improved load shedding schedules by now owing to inadequate power generation capacity.
"Yes there were four generators reported to have been repaired and ready for operations last week but the bottomline is there is no coal to power the machines.
"Hwange Colliery is presently going though a very difficult financial patch that has seen production levels falling drastically and the effect has not spared us too," Eng Rafemoyo commented.
He said the refurbishment of the generators had been done as reported but Zesa had only managed to get one of the rehabilitated generators firing on Monday night.
Therefore, only two units are up and running.
"This means that we are slowly cutting on the hours of load shedding and consumers should not expect supplies to return to normal at once because there are many factors at play here.
"All the four generators rehabilitated can only be used for power generation if there are normal coal supplies, which at the moment are still very erratic. Refurbishment of the generators is one thing and getting them operational is another," Eng Rafemoyo added.
Efforts to get a comment from the Hwange Colliery spokesperson Mr Burzil Dube on the coal situation were fruitless as he was said to be at the Zambia Trade Fair.
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