The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) has apologised for the power outage in some parts of Harare saying thieves stole the authority’s underground cables.
The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), a ZESA subsidiary says it is already working to have the power supply restored to affected areas. Pindula News presents ZETDC’s notice.
The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) would like to apologize to its valued customers in Harare Region for the power outage due to a stolen underground cable.
Areas affected are: Crusher Station, Edith Coert street, Arcadia Square, Arcadia, Culverwell road, St Helena, Cyprus Court, Narvick place, Morgan High School and Morgan Zintech College.
ZETDC engineers and technicians are working to rectify the fault.
The inconvenience caused is sincerely regretted.
ZESA has in the past attributed some power cuts witnessed countrywide to vandalism of its properties including transformers and cables.
In August last year, Zesa reported that it had lost 23 000 transformers and 76 000 cables in Bulawayo to thieves adding that they needed to be urgently repaired.
Thieves risk 30-year-jail terms. In 2019, then Minister of Energy and Power Development, Fortune Chasi, warned members of the public against vandalising ZESA properties or buying stolen electricity infrastructure. He said:
If we find anyone with two litres of transformer oil, one will be imprisoned for 30 years as well.
We are now close to 3 000 transformers stolen, the unfortunate part is that people are dying trying to steal ZESA cables and transformers.
ZETDC experiences an average of 5 cases of vandalism of transformers or cables every day.
More: Pindula News