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Trust Freddy-Herald Correspondent
THE Government has urged the public to reactivate community neighbourhood watch teams to create a greater sense of security and reduce vandalism of property.
Last year power utility, ZESA Holdings, revealed that it has been losing over US$9 million annually due to vandalism and theft of its infrastructure.
Speaking during a stakeholder engagement meeting organised by Zesa Holdings in Mazowe over the weekend, the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Kazembe Kazembe, said people in their respective communities should come up with neighbourhood watch committees to help protect transformers.
“I am urging people to protect transformers just like they protect their own properties,” Minister Kazembe said.
“Government is playing its part but we need to work together as a community to protect our properties. As always, joint organised efforts are more effective than individual efforts so in your groups or as farmers create community neighbourhood watch teams so that we can stop Zesa property theft.
“Honestly, to move a transformer from one place to another you need a car, we know what happens within our communities so if we unite and ring-fence our properties we can curb this theft of properties.”
Through citizens’ involvement, the Minister said the community becomes an extension of the law enforcement agencies’ eyes and ears.
At the same engagement meeting, Minister Kazembe, who is also Mazowe West Member of Parliament, received 16 transformers from Zesa Holdings.
“I want to thank them for bringing the transformers that the community has been crying for,” he said.
“We have the Concession hospital which covers the entire Mazowe which had no power and it obviously affected the water supply at the hospital as well as a number of schools that are not yet connected to the grid.”
Earlyworm Primary School was also connected to the grid for the first time while Concession Hospital and Craigengower farm had vandalised and faulty transformers.
Implementation of community neighbourhood watch usually works when there is an issue in the neighbourhood that residents can rally around and the recent spate of vandalism of Zesa properties could be enough to gather momentum.
The power utility is currently conducting a nationwide stakeholder engagement tour where they are meeting farmers, businesses, the education sector, churches, and political leadership, among others in discussing the electricity supply situation and hearing their concerns.
Engineer Howard Choga, the acting managing director for the Zimbabwe Energy Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), who was representing the company’s executive chairman, Dr Sydney Gata, said the engagement meeting is meant to enhance power supply and distribution across the country.
“What we are doing here is to listen to our clients’ challenges that they are facing in terms of electricity supply and also explaining to them what exactly it means when certain things happen, when there are electricity supply challenges.”
“Some of the transformers we are replacing have already been vandalised, we know in most cases that when something happens someone would have seen it, we want to just encourage the community to report these cases,” he said.
Zesa stakeholder relations, communications and welfare manager Dr George Manyaya said they are implementing President Mnangagwa’s thrust of leaving no one and no place behind.
“We have intensified our stakeholder engagement efforts and we are moving around the country meeting all clients to appreciate their challenges and discuss various issues.
“It is an ongoing programme, we will be replacing faulty and vandalised transformers but we need to increase security to protect new transformers,” he said.
As part of protecting and enhancing power supply, unscrupulous people who unlawfully divert or abstract electricity or those who transport material used for the generation or supply of electricity will no longer be given the option to pay a fine should they be convicted in a court of law, but face a mandatory 10-year jail term.
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