Friday, March 29, 2024

Government should instead rational power than increase tariffs by 75%, says Kitwe Business Community

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ZESCO Muzuma substation being upgraded to KV 330 (from KV 220) in order to be connected to the national grid as soon as the Maamba coal plant station is commissioned
ZESCO Muzuma substation being upgraded to KV 330 (from KV 220) in order to be connected to the national grid as soon as the Maamba coal plant station is commissioned

The Kitwe District Chamber of Commerce, Trade and Industry have urged the government to devise a strategic way of rationing power supply as opposed to importing the commodity, a move that would raise the cost of production for industries.

Speaking in an interview in Kitwe today, Kitwe Chamber of Commerce Vice President Emmanuel Mbambiko also suggested that the mining companies should start paying for electricity at a commercials rate unlike subsidized rates to compensate for the subsidy that government pays on electricity.

Yesterday Energy minister Mathew Nkhuwa said the government will hike the cost of electricity by about 75 percent to enable it to import the commodity from South Africa to cushion the current power deficit.

Mr. Nkhuwa also announced that the fuel price will also go up soon due to the recent attacks on Saudi Arabia owned oil facilities that knocked down crude oil supply.

Mr. Mbambiko said the government should do away with plans to import power and instead prioritize power supply to industries during the day and then supply the households in the evening so that industries can work normally during the day.

He noted that if the government hikes the electricity tariffs now a lot of industries will fail to continue operating as the cost of production is already high due to high fuel and electricity prices.

And Mr. Mbambiko has urged the Minister of Finance Dr. Bwalya Ng’andu to consider reducing tax on the importation of solar power materials in the 2020 national budget to promote diversification to solar energy in view of the electric power deficit.

Giving the chamber’s expectation in next year’s budget due to be presented soon, Mr. Mbambiko also urged the Finance Minister to control the spending pattern for the government especially the cabinet and the security wings.

He said the spending figures should be reduced so that more money is channeled to critical areas such as health and education.

He, however, noted that the government revenue collection base is currently eroded hence making it difficult to make revenue collection projections.

The national budget for the year 2020 is expected to be presented to parliament by Finance Minister Dr. Bwalya Ng’andu before the end of this month.

11 COMMENTS

  1. African leadership is sleep! stop slumbering, say no to unnecessary Western economic remote controls!
    All these abnormal increments are subtly calculated machinations by the West and Asia to impoverish Africans to a point of extinction due to hunger so that they’ll eventually SCRAMBLE AND PARTITION AFRICA among themselves for good.
    Why do you think there is an unprecedented influx of chinese, Europeans, Americans and Indians all over Africa?

  2. But that is a short sighted approach from the Lungu School of mismanagement.You don’t treat the symptoms ,you’re supposed to treat the disease itself.

  3. The key here is for the mines to pay the correct tariffs which we all subjected to! How can consumers of 70 % of electricity be subsidized by poor Zambians who pay tax thereafter mines declare losses to avoid paying taxes!!We need power 24/7 BUT before imports and tariff increments,let the MINISTER AND ZESCO EXPLAIN HOW PREVIOUS TARIFF INCREMENTS HAVE BEEN USED,TO AVOID MORE STEALING THRU THIS CRISIS!!

    • According to the Minister of Energy Sunday Interview, this is no longer the case. The mines are paying about 10 cents in hard currency while domestic consumers, Zambians, are paying 4.9 cents.

  4. The amount of ignorance among our so called captains of industry is simply amazing. They have no idea of what they are talking about and yet want to offer “solutions’. How do they even survive in business?
    But they are not alone, even the politicians are equally at sea in matters of the economy and yet they ‘steer”‘ the economy.

    Look , HH is even much worse in terms of ignorance on these matters, just hear him speak and you will be amazed at what comes out of his mouth, sometimes even Chimbwili speaks more facts even if he hardly understands any.. And H wants to rule all because “it’s time for his trible”). Where is that mentioned in the constitution of Zambia? He should start by amending the constitution to accommodate that, and he now has a chance to do so through the NDF.

  5. More rationing means less electricity consumed and therefore less electricity bought from zesco. However zesco expenditure is the same. To therefore make up for the loss in revenue, zesco increases the price per unit of electricity so that they meet their massive expenditure. So the actual price that the consumer is going to pay for electricity is not the true value of electricity, but its to pay for the bloated expenditure of zesco.

  6. What happened to the “Cost Reflective” tariffs they shaved down our throats? They even assured us that the 100% upward adjustment in tariffs would mean the end of load shedding. Chagwa is on record as having said there would be no more load shedding going forward! What a lie! What lack of vision! Even if we increased tariffs again by 1million percent, it won’t solve the problem! Why should we continue subsidizing cadre recruitment at ZESCO? As the Arrogant Energy Minister said, we are going off the grid as advised! We only have power for 8 hours per day but our units don’t last to month end! It means you have already rebased the units even as you want to increase again! You can’t develop a country without Power! Before ZESCO goes ahead with this latest increment, can they do the nation a…

  7. Before ZESCO goes ahead with this latest increment, can they do the nation a favor by publishing their accounts! We want to know ZESCO’s COST STRUCTURE! We also want to know how much goes to PF! Is it a small thing that businesses should die because of PF incompetence? Why did Sata cancel the Kafue Hydropower project in 2011 only to restart it in 2015 and for the contractor to abandon the project in 2019? What is going on? At what point are Zambians going to wake up to realize that this PF experiment is a total disaster and a Fraud for the country?

  8. As far as am concerned ZESCO does not make any lose after the introduction of pre paid meters,i wonder why they always hip all the cost on zambian people after they fail to find another alternative source of supplying power to the people.Due to climate change we will continue experiencing low level of water at kariba dam and it is high time that we prepare ourselves adequately on how we can generate power within our country rather than importing power which will cost us a lot of money.

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