ZESA raises power tariffs as blackouts escalate
By Tichaona Sibanda
5 June 2007

The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority has announced it is raising electricity prices for both domestic and industrial use by 50 percent, as consumers are left suffering rolling power cuts for the 4th day running.

ZESA holdings, a subsidiary of the state power utility, said in a statement it was raising electricity tariffs to keep in line with inflation which is officially pegged at 3 700 percent, but is believed to be much more than the government figure.

In most parts of the country the power cuts have affected water supplies driven by electrical pumps. The country has over the last two years grappled with chronic power shortages but has suffered even more severe blackouts in the last few days after some of ZESA’s power generators broke down in Hwange.

The country’s energy provider is still in debt of over Z$105 billion (US$420 million at the official exchange rate) and the company’s inability to produce sufficient electricity has forced it to import almost 40 percent of the national requirement, or 650MW, from neighbouring countries, mainly South Africa, but also the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique.

The President of the Zimbabwe Electricity and Energy Workers Union Angeline Chitambo agreed the blackouts had inconvenienced their consumers. She said the problem facing ZESA were the sub-economic tariffs being charged by the power utility company.

Statistics released early this year by ZESA indicated that in 2006 the company generated Z$26 billion (US$104 million) and had an expenditure of $66 billion (US$264 million), leading to a deficit of $34 billion (US$136 million), which is believed now to have ballooned to $105 billion due to high interest rates.

‘But we should not use this as an excuse. We have a duty to transform the company from a loss making entity to a viable company starting with the refurbishment of equipment in Bulawayo and Umnyati. The constant blackouts mean we are no longer sticking to our specific time-tables for load shedding and consumers can now only guess about the outages,’ Chitambo said.

But with empty political promises, empty fuel tanks and empty bellies the country is running on empty and analysts now predict that 2007 could bring the crunch point for the country as the economy has virtually collapsed.

Without a change of government or political reforms, the electricity situation can only get worse. The country’s economic meltdown is blamed largely on Mugabe’s violent seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms in 2000 that disrupted the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket, leading to acute shortages of food and most basic goods. Political turmoil arrived at the same time as Mugabe, desperate to hold on to power, lashed out at anyone perceived to be an opposition supporter.