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He said the programme, targeting 600 000 registered consumers, would be completed within the next 10 months.
“To date, 19 000 customers have prepaid meters. A further 19 000 are expected to be installed within the next four weeks,” said Minister Mangoma.
“The installers are working furiously and will seek to get access to your properties from 6am to 7pm everyday of the week.”
Minister Mangoma said pre-paid meters would see consumers monitoring electricity usage.
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“There will be no need for meter readers to get into your houses and consumers will not receive hefty and frightening bills,” he said.
“Payment of electricity would be made easier as electricity can be purchased from Zesa outlets. It will soon be available in supermarkets.”
Minister Mangoma said for the past three years, Government had been making “positive strides” towards the restoration of basic services.
“Zimbabwe has been experiencing power shortfalls since 1997 as a result of the lack of additional capacity against a background of increased load growth across all sectors in the economy,” he said.
“The power shortfall was worsened by the loss of dependable capacity at Hwange Power Station. The dependable capacity fell from 780 megawatts in the late 1990s to an average of 90 MW to 300 MW to early 2009.
“However, the dependable capacity has since improved to an average of 500 MW.”
Minister Mangoma said power deficit was resulting in massive load shedding as Zesa would be balancing supply and demand.
“Against a suppressed demand of 2 000MW, an average of 1 300MW is resulting in a 35 percent power deficit resulting in load shedding,” he said.
“The load shedding, which is unavoidable, is inconveniencing customers and frustrating efforts to turnaround the economy.”
He said Government was implementing a number of strategies to address power shortages.
“In the short term, the technology at the three small thermal power stations at Harare, Munyati and Bulawayo will be changed in order for them to produce at full capacity of 285 MW,” said Minister Mangoma.
“Efforts are underway to revive the dependable capacity of Hwange Power Station through major maintenance at a cost of US$40 million. The dependable capacity is expected to reach 700MW within a year.”
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company managing director Engineer Julian Chinembiri said the four contracted companies, Solhart, ZTE, Finmark and Nyamazela of South Africa, would give preference to areas recommended by Zesa.
“We are starting with areas that have load limits and with no meters and faulty meters. All areas will be covered so people should expect the installers at any time,” he said.
“All cities will have installers because this is a national programme. We once phased out prepaid meters long back because of lack of spare parts, but these new ones are advanced technologically and are compatible.”
Eng Chinembiri said the pre-paid meters would be for free.
“In cases like these, some employees would want to take advantage of the programme to charge amounts. Everything is for free,” he said
Zesa’s billing system is based on estimates, a situation that has seen consumers refusing to settle some of the bills.
The situation has also seen the power utility failing to recoup hundreds of millions of United States dollars owed by consumers.
The consumers argue that Zesa has a poor debt management system, despite that they owe the power utility about US$600 million.
The poor debt-management system has also seen Zesa struggling to settle foreign debts.
Online Reporter