ZESCO Limited, Zambia’s energy giant has disclosed that the waiting list of people who have paid for connection of electricity from has been cut from about 67,000 to about 11,000. This is expected to improve national household and commercial entities connections to the national grid which experts say at country level, is only at about 30 to 40%.
The state-owned power company (ZESCO) reported that it had accumulated a connection backlog of over 67,000 customers as of December 2021 which built up from 2014 to 2021. The backlog was initially blamed on lack of wooden poles locally, to justify importation of wooden poles, a claim that was refuted by ZAFFICO – a publicly listed producer of wooden poles and a local wooden poles trader Copperbelt Forestry Company.
Speaking during a media briefing in Lusaka Monitored by the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, ZESCO Managing Director Victor Mapani said the backlog is currently sitting at 11, 000 with all standard connections completed and the only ones remaining are non-standards.
He said ZESCO set out to clear the backlog within a year and by the end of the 1st quarter 2022 and quarter 2 of 2022, the backlog was sitting at 37, 000 and 25, 000 respectively.
Mapani said this process was derailed when the Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA) was petitioned over the importation of the poles which were not readily available in Zambia.
He also said the power utility firm also had debt owed to independent power producers which had now been reduced by $500 million.
Mapani said ZESCO’s huge debt encumbrance which has hindered the corporation from functioning optimally has been reduced from $3.5 billion as of December 2022 to now about $3 billion.It Ian however not clear if the $3 billion debt also includes the $2 billion invested into the construction of the 750MW Kafue Gorge Lower.
He said the debt reduction has mostly been driven by the renegotiating of existing contracts and improving the corporation’s financial discipline which has resulted in ZESCO meeting obligations as and when they fall due. ZESCO has since ended a month long load shedding which had blighted and tarnished the image of the energy company.
