COMMENT: Rural communities should jealously guard their electricity infrastructure

RURAL communities whose lives are being transformed by the ongoing rural electrification programme should jealously guard the electricity infrastructure against vandalism.

There has been rampant increase in cases of theft and vandalism of conductors and transformers thereby disrupting power supplies in rural areas.

The communities should therefore come up with robust systems to counter vandalism so that they continue enjoying the benefits of electrification of their areas.

Government through the Rural Electrification Fund (REF) has so far electrified 9 760 rural institutions that include schools, clinics, chiefs’ homesteads, business centres and villages countrywide.

Energy and Power Development Minister Zhemu Soda has however, appealed for more financial support for REF saying the six percent electrification levy the fund gets from electricity sales and what it is allocated by Government was not enough.

Minister Soda said there is an urgent need to increase resources to the fund to enable it to accelerate the rural electrification programme.

He said there was a need to maintain the moment which has seen many rural communities accessing electricity.

Minister Soda said the provision of electricity to rural communities will lead to empowerment of communities, alleviation of poverty and employment creation.

He said following the electrification of schools, many teachers now enjoy working in rural areas and pupils like their counterparts in urban areas, can use modern gadgets such as computers.

Clinics and other rural health centres are now able to keep drugs that require refrigeration.

Minister Soda however, bemoaned vandalism and theft of key electricity infrastructure which he said was a huge blow to the fund as it was slowing down progress on some projects.

The rural communities should not allow vandals to destroy electricity infrastructure thereby derailing their progress.

We have said before that criminals reside in communities and the onus is on communities to rid their areas of these criminals by reporting them to authorities.

Those who harbour criminals are accomplices and should be treated as such.

It is pleasing to note that Government is simultaneously working on improving power generation so that those areas electrified are guaranteed adequate power at any given time.

The challenge is therefore to increase resources to the REF so that more rural areas are electrified in order to uplift the people’s living standards.