ZESA Holdings has threatened to switch off Gweru City Council to recover a ZWL$260 million debt.
The City of Gweru’s director of finance, Livingstone Churu, said they received a notice from the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission Distribution Company (ZETDC), a unit of ZESA, on Monday stating the power utility’s intention to disconnect the electricity. Said Churu:
Like today (Monday), I did not have a good day in the office after I received a notice of electricity disconnection and I was really troubled.
What it means is that if our electricity is disconnected, we can no longer pump water, and we cannot collect revenue, so we were pleading with ZESA not to switch us off and I think they understood us because they were bound to disconnect us today (Monday) at 10 AM.
ZESA Holdings says it is owed US$62 million and ZWL$17 billion by both individuals and commercial and industrial clients as of last week.
More: Business Times