Fredrick Moyo
The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) said the power subsidiary loses US$4 million annually in potential revenue through vandalism of transformers, theft of copper conductors, iron angles, illegal connections and corruption in the organisation.
Speaking at a stakeholders meeting held on February 04 2022 at Flamboyant Hotel in Masvingo, Head of Loss Control Festo Madembo said ZETDC is losing huge amounts of money due to various illegal activities as well as corruption.
“In 2020 we received a total number of 947 cases of stolen property which translated to the value of USD $ 4 390 000 and in 2021 we had 1 267 cases that were valued at USD $ 4 460 000, within two years ZETDC has lost infrastructure valued to USD $ 8.8 million which is a huge amount of money,” said Madembo.
“ZETDC is facing many challenges which include theft of transformers and iron angles, illegal connections and ramped corruption of ZETDC workers. Last year 281 transformers were manufactured and were supposed to be distributed to the community but the whole of last year ZETDC lost 288 transformers.
“We also have a challenge of theft of electricity whereby people are doing illegal connections, bypassing metres to use free electricity. Stealing copper conductors and iron angle bolts and nuts and corruption of ZETDC workers affecting service delivery,” added Madembo.
The power utility company has been struggling to generate enough electricity as there has been massive load shedding countrywide.
… As power utility launches Call Centre
Fredrick Moyo
The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) is expecting to launch a call centre by mid-2022 as part of efforts to improve service delivery.
Speaking during a stakeholders meeting held on February 04 2022 at Flamboyant Hotel in Masvingo, ZETDC Acting Managing Director Engineer Howard Choga said they are setting up a call centre in Harare before mid-year like other organisations have done in order to improve service delivery in the country.
“We are setting up a contact centre in Harare. We would have a contact centre where by you call from across the country to the same place they will dispatch your problems to the people that resolve them.
“Before mid-year 2022, we would have launched this contact centre because all the hardware and software have all been commissioned and we are in the process of recruiting agents and people that will be manning the contact centre,” said Choga.
He also added that the call centre is meant to improve service delivery in the country and for the good of the customers as they can use many platforms to say the challenges they are facing or encountering.
“All these things are meant to ensure that service delivery for the best of our clients is improved and also through the same channel you can Email, WhatsApp, Web-chat, Facebook and many other social media platforms. This is the most important thing and we are going to use it to measure how we are performing, so once it happens it means that we would be able to focus on certain areas,” he added.
Speaking at the same event ZETDC Commercial Services Manager Engineer Gift Ndlovu said they have enhanced their credit control measures and are in the process of dispatching prepaid metres targeting that each and every house will have a prepaid metre by 2023.
“We have enhanced our credit control measures and we are running disconnection blitz to those who are not paid up. Clients should be paid up or on a payment plan and out team is out there disconnecting those who are not paid up and those who are not on payment plans.
“We also look forward that everyone should be on pre-paid platforms and we are installing pre-paid metres. We still have a long way to go but I am glad to let you know that 712 000 clients are now on pre-paid metres and we still have about 100 000 that are on fixed paid metres. We are working to make sure that by the end of year everyone would be on pre-paid metres,” he said.
ZETDC has been pleading with its clients to pay up their bills as this would improve service delivery.
