MultiChoice Zambia says it has experienced substantial additional costs for continuous provision of services following the extended load shedding hours, which has increased the the company’s operational costs.

Explaining to News Diggers! the extent to which the entertainment provider had been affected by load shedding in an interview, Thursday, MultiChoice Zambia chief customer officer Leah Kooma said extended load shedding hours had increased the company’s operational costs, pushed up by generator power backup and contingency facilities.

Kooma could, however, not state whether or not MultiChoice had recorded any reduction in the number of subscribers, both on the DsTV and GoTV platforms, saying doing so would be acting against the company’s business policy.

“Like any other Zambian business, MultiChoice is also heavily impacted by this erratic power supply. Load shedding is a costly inconvenience; it increases our operational costs, burdens our resources and also, most importantly, it affects the experience of our valued customers to enjoy services that we have, that’s on both GoTV and DSTV. However, as a business, we have a priority to deliver value to our customers and to ensure that we make great entertainment accessible to our customers using our leading edge technology systems. But then, as MultiChoice, we are incurring substantial additional costs to ensure that we have a continuous provision of our services and this is increased operational costs with regards generator power backup and contingency facilities that we are experiencing in this time of extended hours of load shedding,” Kooma explained.

She regretted that the company still had to pay its suppliers in full even though it was also heavily affected by load shedding.

“As a business, we also continue to pay our suppliers in full because we have to pay for the content that we get on the different channels and we also have to pay for the services that we receive from the different channel providers, irrespective of the power situation in Zambia,” she said.

Asked if the company had recorded a reduced number in subscribers on both its entertainment platforms due to load shedding, Kooma said she could not, however, avail those details.

“With regards the decrease in the number of customers due to the increased load shedding hours, which has been adjusted to about 15 hours a day, in line with our business policy, I, unfortunately, cannot disclose our subscriber numbers, but financial related information can be accessed on www.multichoice.com/investors. This is where you can get financial related information,” she replied.

And Kooma informed subscribers of the exciting offers that the company had ahead of the 2019 festive season.

“Our active DsTV customers can continue enjoying entertainment that we provide even if there is no power by downloading the free DsTV Now application, which we have and people can download this on their devices and continue watching the great content on their devices. But further to that, announcement of exciting festive season offers are underway and we are going to communicate the great offers that we have for our DsTV and GoTV customers in Zambia very soon,” said Kooma.