Former UPND Vice President Dr Canisius Banda has advised government not to privatise ZESCO.
Dr Banda said ZESCO is indispensable for national security.
He however said that in its current form, ZESCO is a clear and present danger to Zambia’s economic prosperity and the wellbeing of citizens.
Dr Banda described ZESCO as a factory of poverty.
He said the utility firm must be restructured, commercialised and its efficiency of delivery of service must be improved.
Dr Banda has also not ruled out the unbundling.
“Many things should be done to ZESCO but the one thing that must NOT be done to it is to privatise it. Privatisation of ZESCO would be a calamity,” Dr Banda said.
He said more actors both private and public are required in the electricity sector adding that electricity is a public good.
“In Zambia today, under the current monopolistic framework, if electricity was solely in private hands this would create an insurmountable barrier to access, which barrier would kill both the economy and the citizens. And if the buyer/owner had imperialistic designs on Zambia, then this would deal a mortal blow to our sovereignty and independence,” he said.
He feared that under the guise of a legitimate business transaction, economic colonialism would then become a malignant and insidious fixture in our lives.
“By extension, a Republican President under such economic reality, would be devoid of real power, effeminate he would be and would exist in name only, a useless but titular one. ZESCO today is not equipped to serve the purpose for which it was created. It requires informed investment founded on sound planning for it to heal.”
He said over the years, ZESCO has been reduced to a humanitarian rationing entity and in some cases, abused as a support base for political campaigns.
He said, “Japan has over 130 million people and thousands of industries. Zambia has only 15 million people and the ZDA is embarrassed to state how many industries Zambia has. The ZDA has egg on its face on this serious developmental matter.”
Dr Banda sad Japan has NO power outages adding it only occurs only in times of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and the like.
“In Zambia, a day without a power outage is a source of worry, wonder and confusion. And the only natural disaster here is ourselves. Something is clearly amiss. And that which is amiss is us, the people, our thinking. That we think is beyond dispute but our thinking is veritably not in keeping with the development dictates of our country. We need to pull up our national socks.”
He said, “A baker must never invest in discouraging his consumers from purchasing his bread. The greater the demand the happier he should be. Now today ZESCO is engaged in the paradoxical conduct of paying for adverts that its clients should not consume electricity.”
Dr Banda said ZESCO must work closely with councils countrywide and other real estate developers, so that it has a thorough database of all constructions, housing, industry or other, being undertaken in the country.
“When these constructions reach a given level, meet the required specifications, ZESCO must connect power to these facilities at NO charge.”
He said connection fees are a barrier to access and can be hidden in the tariffs anyway but that the psychological gain by the consumer is huge with incalculable political profits.
I think the biggest calamity is you Dr. Banda. We do not own Zambia because we are at the mercy of the creditors. Government asserts must be liquidated or sold to raise money your PF friends borrowed. What do you expect?
Chimbwili and PF have loaded Zesco with their relatives and cadres. Canicius should talk to his masters, for whom he was snitching on HH, about Zesco. That’s no need to involve us. We are the victims of Zesco, the “factory of poverty”.
So this man still carries some UPND grey matter. Let us keep observing for the next six months and see how his language will change if he joins PF. He will be using dununa reverse thinking.
Everything he says dont make sense. Japan is well ahead in technology hence you cant compare to Zambia.
It is PF that is the real Poverty Factory.
And ZESCO is mismanaged and abused by its managers and staff. For instance, those free units each and every employee gets. My previous tenant who is just a common staff had over 60,000 units in his meter. so< how employees are in Zambia who get these free units from top to bottom???
zesco should be given away sell, it pliz only politician benefit frm zesco .
Dr Banda is talking sense here, he’s analysis is that of a qualified Electrical engineering graduate. The question however is; why were you wasting your time with UPND? Why didn’t you team up with your colleagues you’re ‘tearing’ apart today so that you could have been fighting from within? Shame on you baba and if it’s a job you’re looking for with your Malawian relatives in Government, wailasha kwa Zescoro….
Instead of privatizing ZESCO (by the way the new owners will actually not add anything but will be able to supply power without load shedding – trust me on this) open the field and let private investors come in with their own models and tariffs, especially by lifting subsidies that just make the whole idea of power provision a joke. Why do we always want to CONTROL EVERYTHING under the excuse of national security???? What national security?
@6 kalok,but why not lift tariffs and bring in partners instead giving it away completely? One of the reasons ZESCO does not operate well is that the tariffs are low! So why not allow it to make profit,make it attractive through good tariffs instead of giving it away to foreigners after you have raised tariffs- just to allow foreigners to ship out dollars? See how messed up with mines! We let them deteriorate,ended up selling them cheap and gave a lot of incentives to new owners. The incentives we never gave to ZCCM despite various representations to government. Now the new owners close the mines at will and most of them never bother to pay taxes!! What is wrong with trying something we have not done before- unbundling and joint ownership with the private sector?!
Canicius is right on one point. The lunacy where Zesco begs people not use power and actually spends money to drive home this point. If you can’t get rich when you are the sole supplier of a commodity on demand you have a dead brain.
Allow market related tariffs to be charged & invite the private sector to invest in generating Hydro-power & other forms. The current tariffs are not viable for private investors. You can also put a cap on their pricing, just like in the case of fuel & SA has done that successfully with the IPP. Allow competition, where all producers charge the same rates. Zesco will either work up or die a natural death.
The problem is with our educated Zambians. You even wonder if educated Zambians are really educated. For sure No one should think of selling ZESCO. And you bloggers Who doesn’t know that Zambia is experiencing poor rainfall pattern?
5% less rainfall for 1 year , Cheap chinese generators that use 50% more water. Good luck with the rainfall pattern.
Poor rainfall pattern? Rubbish!
Load shredding has been caused by POOR MANAGEMENT!
In 2011 ONE WHOLE YEAR’S SUPPLY OF WATER WAS WASTED BY ZESCO!
And PF CANCELLED the Kafue Lower gorge, only to be restarted by Lungu in 2015!
THAT is why we have load shedding. PF incompetence! Nothing to do with rainfall.
if zesco was in private hands they would have invested in other source of energy .droughts do occur in all continents but power supply is on all the time .they call pro active .dont wait until the problem occurs. the problem is with the government who have turned zesco into a cash cow for party regalia. i thought with an educated president this would stop, alas, it is worse
Zesco is a total mess. Even without load shedding, their service delivery is pathetic. Their call center and without exaggeration is the worst in the world and I am saying this because I am well travelled. Even Escom in SA has service delivery issues but ZESCO is at another level – worse. I have tried to engage senior management at ZESCO to advise, there are as hopeless as the junior staff. Privatisation might not be the best but surely something needs to be done and top of the agenda must be the sourcing of complete new staff
The problem with ZESCO, and indeed like any other public institution is that all the staff and management are from the north or east. This has even been extended to the toll gates staff. Don’t argue as the names of these staff and management are visible to be seen.
Pilgrim kikiki who made you economic advisor of government? thought they appointed your clerk in some ministry. please go and work on paying your rent. what a failure of a man
Typical issue of Africans, espacially zambiains, no amount of education will achieve tangible progress. UNZA etc for what? Belly thought dictates plus that dick and all is fine.
If Zambians really want INVESTORS and not INFESTORS they should let those who want to go in energy business to INVEST in new Power Generation Plants (Hydro and Solar) and not into existing ZESCO infrastructure.
We dont want another KCM Scandal . So called Investor uses profit from the sold mine within three months and pays Zambian Government (Our own money ) SHAME.
CANISIUS is right. We sold off Zambian Airways a company that had more assets than liabilities because of GREED ZAMBIAN politicians and IMF at the time instead of merely reoganisiong its operations.
What is required is to just reorganise ZESCO.
Economist worth the salt will tell you that ZESCO in its present form enjoys better economies of scale and banks would give loans to it than in unbundle form, but greed…
More idd ioyotic than patrioyic!