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Golden Sibanda Senior Business Reporter
POWER utility ZESA Holdings is targeting to install 500 000 pre-paid meters by next month to complete the first phase of the project. ZESA spokesman Mr Fullard Gwasira said the utility is targeting to install 800 000 pre-paid meters under the project which is in line with the goals and ideals of the new economic blueprint Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-Economic Transformation as electricity is a key driver of the economy.
“To date, ZETDC has installed over 400 000 prepaid meters and by March 2014, we are targeting to have finished installing the first phase of 500 000 meters at domestic premises and small institutions countrywide,” Mr Gwasira said.
However, the objectives of the pre-paid metering project seemed to have come under threat after consumers started tampering with the meters as they now have to pay for power in advance.
A drop in revenue would likely affect operations at a time the country is facing power shortage as it can only generate about 1 200 megawatts against peak demand of 2 200MW.
ZESA says it was owed in excess of US$800 million by both industrial and domestic
consumers by November 2013, which the utility desperately needs to maintain infrastructure.
Prepaid meters allow consumers to manage their power consumption and expectations are that this will lead to efficient use of energy in the country which is facing serious deficits.
“The issue of revenue protection is very central to the operations of the business. Consequently, the utility on an ongoing concern, is constantly reviewing business operation systems with a view towards identifying revenue leakages,” he said.
Mr Gwasira said the Zimbabwe Electricity and Distribution Company has since set up a fully resourced revenue protection unit whose mandate is to guard against revenue losses.
The establishment of such special units is standard procedure in all countries which have put in place prepaid meters.
The security systems that have been put in place to deter power theft have resulted in the apprehension of 76 consumers who tampered with their electricity meters, resulting in the recovery of revenue of more than US$145 000.
Consequently, the measures undertaken by ZETDC have also started bearing fruit as the power utility has improved its revenue generation that is now averaging between US$55 million to US$60 million on a monthly basis. The utility had been generating an average of 40 million.
In addition, the power utility said it has put in place statistical meters whose function is to monitor and establish variations between load supplied and revenue for each area.
ZETDC generates, query reports daily, which show meters not consuming power or that have low consumption, with remedial actions being instituted immediately to correct anomalies.
Zesa said the issues of quality are central to its business model and in line with that they terminated the contract of one of their suppliers of the prepaid meters due to quality concerns.
“We constantly monitor the quality of our equipment, contractor and workmanship with a view towards instituting remedial action.
“All faulty meters that are installed by our contractors are replaced by the same contractors at their expense,” Mr Gwasira said.
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