ZESCO says despite the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) approving its emergency tariff hike, the seven hours of power supply which was indicated in its application will be dependent on the cash inflows because it needs to import power.
In an interview, Zesco spokesperson Matongo Maumbi said although the power utility will effect the emergency tariffs on November 1, 2024, it was unlikely that the money needed to import power would be raised within a month.
“That position will be discussed next (this) week and so that is why I put a disclaimer that we have acknowledged the conditionalities. But just from a standard point of view, the tariff increment is for 1st November. But income will only come within November and so the question is, are we going to receive the 15 million within November? Which is a high likely no. So, that is what we are discussing next week as we respond to ERB on their conditionalities. It will all depend on the income inflows,” he said.
“The imports are on pre-payment basis kind of condition. If it was post payment, it could have been a different story but it’s a pre-payment, meaning we have to have the money to import. And you know, even residential customers, they don’t buy power at the same time. Even the commercial ones, they pay for power after use. So, it may be effected on 1st November but then you have people pay for power maybe at the end of the month depending on their billing cycle. So, we are discussing it comprehensively next week and see how that seven hours will come to play and when possibly it will come into full effect. So, this is largely dependent on the income that will be coming in from 1st November”.
And Maumbi said Zesco was still exporting power to Botswana because there could be some ramifications if that stopped.
He was reacting to an article which went viral on social media that Zesco had surpassed South Africa’s ESCOM in power exports to Botswana despite Zambia’s energy crisis.
“I know we are still exporting, it’s part of that 250MW, we are also exporting to a couple of countries around the borders. In terms of the quantities, I don’t know how much we are exporting to Botswana. It’s the business development team that has those figures. We are still exporting to that country. Some of the exports are based on border towns and so those towns, we can’t switch them off or we can’t stop exporting because once we stop, it means even cross border trade will get to suffer. But in terms of how many figures there are, those details I don’t have,” said Maumbi.
