Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Chama North Member of Parliament Yotam Mtayachalo has noted the need to depoliticize Zesco to allow the company to purely run as a business entity.
And the law maker has urged the power utility firm to implement radical measures in order to address some of the financial challenges they are currently facing.
Mr. Mtayachalo has rubbished assertions by the dawn government that failure to charge cost reflective tariffs is among the many reasons behind the financial challenges the company is facing today having recently increased the tariffs to unprecedented levels of up to 200 %.
He says domestic, commercial and industrial consumers are currently struggling to meet the current high cost of electricity hence the financial viability of Zesco will among others depend on them increasing the customer base by connecting a lot of customers who have paid new electricity connections but have not been connected.
Mr. Mtayachalo adds that Zesco should consider mobilizing additional resources to procure necessary materials aimed at clearing a backlog of a long outstanding list of customers who have paid capital contributions in full but have not been connected due to shortage of service cables and other vital materials just to mention but a few.
He says the power utility firm should further consider designing a deliberate policy which can help to increase its customer base such as coming up with a more flexible and affordable payment plan for new customer.
Meanwhile, Mr. Mtayachalo has commended zesco for investing more than 2 billion dollars in the Kafue gorge lower hydro power station which is a single largest investment in the electricity generation sub sector in more than 45 years after the 900 mega watts Kafue gorge hydro power station was commissioned in 1977.