Last month, Zesco submitted an application to the Energy Regulation Board, seeking approval for an emergency tariff adjustment for its Residential, Commercial and Maximum Demand customer categories. The adjustment was expected to impact approximately 44% of customers or 417,365 households and tariffs were expected to rise between 50 and 156 percent. Taking a populist approach, the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) rejected Zesco’s application for this emergency tariff hike, noting that increased tariffs would inevitably increase the cost of living and worsen the current state of affairs. According to the ERB board, Zesco’s application for emergency tariffs increment could not be approved for the following reasons among others: “(i) It was highly unlikely that Zesco would raise sufficient revenue from the...