Council switched off

House and Remembrance Drive council offices had gone for five days without power.
Town House is the seat of the capital implying that even Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda was also operating in darkness. Cleveland House houses the urban planning services and the engineering department while Remembrance Drive is home to the housing department and its various divisions.

Employees were yesterday seen sitting outside their offices only getting into the dark rooms to attend to clients who wanted manual processing of queries
Zesa switched off the offices because of a debt amounting to US$53 million.

But sources said claims that Zesa should write off its debt with council were misleading because the power utility only owed US$3,6 million which it had agreed to pay.
Harare Water owes Zesa US$45 million. The city consumes power valued at US$1 million per month at its water treatment plants. This implies that for the past 45 months the city has not paid for electricity consumed at its water plants. The other US$13 million is from city properties that include the Mbare Hostels and the over 8 000 other properties.

People renting the hostels and the properties are not paying their bills. The source indicated that Zesa could not switch off the water installations and Rowan Martin because of standing agreements.