Zesco facing low voltage in E/Province – Chitundu

Zesco facing low voltage in E/Province – Chitundu
Written by Christopher Miti in Chipata
Sunday, August 23, 2009 2:14:13 PM

ZESCO acting managing director Cyprian Chitundu last Friday said low voltage is one of the key problems the company faces in Eastern Province. During an interactive meeting with Zesco customers at Katuta Lodge, Chitundu said the company would address the low voltage in the next couple of months by dealing with the transformer problem at Msoro in Mambwe district.

"The government is looking at agriculture, looking at tourism, very key of course, mining and so on. The Eastern Province is very key in these two issues, agriculture and tourism, but we as Zesco are failing you in a way. One of the key problems we have is that of low voltage so even the employees who are sitting here with us are also customers on the other side," he said.

"And this problem of low voltage requires to be addressed so what we are going to do in the near future, probably in the next couple of months or so, we are going to deal with the transformer problem that we have at Msoro. This is an old automatic transformer, we need to swap it and put it in a different circuit that we hope will improve the voltage in Eastern Province."

Chitundu said in the long-term plan, the company would change the line that supplies the province from Pensulo through Lusiwasi Power Station.

"In the next one and half years is to change the line because the line that feeds the province is a 66 kv line, so we want to change the line from 66 to 132. So we hope this is going to improve the voltage significantly," Chitundu said.

He said the company was bringing in materials that would help in the construction of new lines.

"We had the challenge with poles. The company that we were getting poles from, the Copper belt Forestry Company, was unable to give us the number of poles that we required and the quantities that we required so we had to go out starting to look for poles in Zimbabwe in South Africa. Right now we are getting sufficient number of poles that are coming in. We soon have delivered to Nyimba, Petauke some of them are already coming in to Chipata and will be going to Lundazi so that so that we can do those projects [connecting new customers]," Chitundu said.

He said Zesco had asked a company that it partly owned in Ndola to supply it with about 1,000 transformers in the next year to resolve all the outstanding problems that the company had in terms of new connections.

Chitundu said with the increase in tariffs, Zesco would also improve the service.

Breeze FM proprietor Mike Daka said Zesco's inability to provide regular power supply had raised the cost of doing business to between 30 to 40 per cent additional cost.

"Previously we really had problems because Zesco did not explain what was going on, further Zesco did not even apologise for what was going on the disruptions of work. Let me say there has been change in the last couple of months. We have seen real change, there is information now so we hope with your coming now that indeed will be turning a new phase," said Daka.