Zesa switches off Harare mayor

office blocks over US$53 million in unpaid bills.

Apart from Town House, it also emerged on Friday that Cleveland House and the Remembrance Drive council offices had gone for five days without power.Even Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda was operating in darkness in the dead Town House.
Cleveland House houses the urban planning services and the engineering department while Remembrance Drive is home to the housing department and its divisions.

Workers were on Friday observed sitting outside their offices only going into the dark rooms to attend to clients who wanted manual processing of queries and inquiries.
Harare Water owes Zesa US$45 million. The city consumes power amounting to US$1 million a 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 rest is owed on 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.

According to our source, Zesa could not switch off the water installations and Rowan Martin because of standing agreements.
“The bill also includes charges for traffic, street and tower lights. Residents of the Mbare Hostels are not paying for their electricity. We can not put individual meters because of the poor state of the buildings,” said the source.

The majority of street, traffic and tower lights are not working.
Taps at the city headquarters had also run dry for the past three days, but the offices started receiving water on Thursday.

The water shortage was attributed to maintenance work being carried out by city workers in various parts of the city.
Toilets at the council seat were also in a mess for the past five days because there was no running water.

Workers complained that they were made to report for duty when it was clear that the situation at Town House was not conducive and unhygienic.
Town clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi, who was in Bulawayo attending the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, said he was still to be updated on the situation.