By ZAMBIA NEWS FEATURES CORRESPONDENT
The Zambia Energy Regulation Board (ERB) is disappointed with the poor turn out of people at public hearings where people were to submit their views on proposed electricity tariff hikes.
ERB chairman Sikota Wina said in a speech at a press briefing and made available to the Zambia News Features Thursday that only 20 out of 46 people who had made written submissions turned up at the hearings to articulate their positions.
ZESCO van
Wina made the disclosure when he announced an almost 26 percent hike of Zambia Electricity Supply Company (ZESCO)’s tariffs which would take effect from August 1, 2010 to 2011 and would be applied according to customer categories.
ZESCO earlier applied to ERB to increase tariffs by 36 percent but Wina said the board arrived at its decision to approve the 25.6 percent increase after considering submissions from both the power utility company and the general public.
Residential customers would now be paying K376.09 per kilo watt hour representing a 41 percent instead of the 69 percent tariff increase which ZESCO applied for while large power consumers would now be paying K320.54 per KW hour representing
a 12 percent increase.
ERB also noted that ZESCO has not yet shifted its staff tariff to the regular residential tariffs contrary to ERB directives.
“Due to the continued failure by ZESCO to implement the board directive of 2007 and 2009 to abolish its staff tariffs, the ERB has converted the staff tariff to pre-paid residential tariff,” Wina said.
He said that this meant that if ZESCO continued to charged the uneconomic staff tariff, ZESCO would forego an estimated revenue of K3 billion.
“This measure is to ensure that the burden of uneconomic staff tariffs is not borne by ordinary consumers but by ZESCO itself. If ZESCO does not comply with this directive immediately, the ERB will apply other regulatory sanctions against the utility,” Wina said.
Zambian electricity consumers have in the last few years been hit by constant power cuts which ZESCO calls load shedding due to aging power generation and distribution equipment and coupled with this the consumers have also faced ever increased tariffs.
ZESCO has also introduced pre-paid meters in most areas of Lusaka and the Copperbelt but most consumers now opt to use charcoal for cooking and other heating needs and only use electricity for electricity appliances such as fridges, TVs and Hi-Fis.
(Edited by Gershom Ndhlovu. Contact us on editor@zambianewsfeatures.com)
