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All persons who use electricity can buy and install smart meters.
The move will see thousands of people installing the prepaid meters on their own.
The smart meters were not for sale and people had to wait for their turn to have them installed through a programme rolled out by Zesa last year.
The new regulations were gazetted in Statutory Instrument 44A of 2013 published in an extraordinary Government Gazette yesterday.
There were no rules guiding the installation of the meters and settling of outstanding debts since Zesa started installing them in August last year.
According to the Statutory Instrument, any electricity charges outstanding on the date on which a prepaid meter is installed shall be debts of the property in which that prepaid meter was installed and shall be reflected as a debit in the installed meter.
“It is hereby notified that the Minister of Energy and Power Development Minister has in terms of section 65 of the Electricity Act (Chapter 13:19) made the regulations after consultation with the Commission,” the notice read.
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“Any person who owns the property upon which a prepaid meter has been installed has the right to recover the debt of the property from any person who is responsible for incurring the debt.
“An owner of a property may enter into an agreement with any person who intends to occupy the property regarding the manner in which they will make payments towards the unpaid bill in the prepaid meter.”
The notice also stated that all electricity users could now buy smart meters and install them in their homes.
“All persons who consume electricity may purchase and install smart meters.
“Where a smart meter is installed prior to payment being made for its purchase and installation, the cost of the smart meter and installation shall be charged and recovered as an unpaid bill,” read the notice.
Meters installed through the Zesa programme were for free.
The gazetting of the regulations comes at a time Zesa is struggling to install prepaid meters on the premises of its 600 000 customers.
As of last week, the power utility had installed 100 000 prepaid meters in domestic premises countrywide since August last year.
The power utility had a headache on how it would secure financing for the project as the US$17,5 million it got as initial funding from a financial institution was fast getting exhausted.
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company managing director Engineer Julian Chinembiri, said they had initially budgeted US$65 million but the power utility needed at least US$77 million to complete the project.
He said a comprehensive assessment would be made in July on how the company had fared and whether they were still within their target.
Four companies, Solahart, ZTE, Finmark and Nyamazela of South Africa have been contracted to install the prepraid meters.
Zesa introduced prepaid meters as part of efforts to enhance revenue collection with consumers owing the power utility hundreds of millions of United States dollars.
Online Reporter