Gazette
The farmers
Z
esco is in a pretty parlous state
to deliver its services now that it is
collecting 250% more revenue that it
did last month from most of Zambia’s
consumers. Those poor mines,
suffering from low copper prices,
have been spared any increases- by
virtue of mysterious contractual
terms, we are told. Who contracted
away half of our electricity production
out of the jurisdiction of the Energy
Regulation Board ?
Zesco is required by the Energy
Regulation Board to adhere to
a number of Key performance
Indicators. These include attending
to faults in a timely and efficient
manner as well as reducing its labour
costs to a level way below the 50%
of its revenue that it was spending
on employee costs and benefits.
Since these KPIs were introduced to
Zesco management more than ten
years ago, the utility has struggled to
address this important component of
what we are told are “Cost-Reflective
Tariffs”.
Most people will agree that Zesco
must recover the cost of providing
electricity to the Zambian economy.
Taxpayer money should not be used
to prop up energy supply. There are
many more worthy claims on those
funds than keeping the lights on.
That cost of supply, however, cannot
include a bloated and inefficient
labour force or fund “seminars” at
exotic locations across Zambia.
The ERB needs to open up an
effective complaints procedure
that will properly and transparently
address complaints from Zesco
customers. Zesco can hardly be
expected to police its own complaints
system. In the absence of any such
structure, the ERB will be perceived
to be complicit in the poor service
and incompetent maintenance
practices that have become the order
of the day within Zesco.
Until Zesco is unbundled into three
different and independent entities
dealing with generation, transmission
and distribution respectively, the
operations of this critical component
of the Zambian economy must be
the subject of the most intense
and transparent scrutiny from its
shareholders and customers – the
people of Zambia.
We might also get the answer to
how we sold the 50% Zambian share
of the Kariba South Bank 600Mw
generating capacity for $40 million
when we paid $150m for half of that
capacity at the new 120Mw Itezhi
Tezhi plant.
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Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for
your country. John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America.
FARMERS GAZETTE
November 2015
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