Hundreds march through Bulawayo to protest ZESA failures
Tichaona Sibanda
27 October 2011
Hundreds of protesters marched through the streets of Bulawayo on Thursday,
venting their anger at the country’s utility company ZESA, for its catalogue
of failures that have impacted so badly on residents
Demonstrators hoisted signs and chanted: ‘ZESA is raping us,’ ‘No ZESA No
money.’ Our Bulawayo correspondent Lionel Saungweme told us the mood seemed
one of exuberance, not rage, and police who shadowed the march made no
effort to interfere.
The march was organized by the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association
whose members have inundated them with complaints over power outages and
huge bills. ZESA is also being castigated for disconnecting power from
almost 70 percent of the city’s households.
The residents association handed over petitions to ZESA, its board and the
Ministry of Energy, demanding that action be taken urgently to rectify
failing standards at the utility company.
‘The residents are angry that the failure by ZESA to provide adequate power
has impacted negatively on industry, health, environment, education. Crime
has gone up, especially at night time when victims are pounced upon in dark
areas. Most of the time there is no electricity at various industries in the
city forcing many companies to lay off workers. What surprises the residents
is that at the end of the month they still get huge bills, when half the
time they go for hours without power,’ Saungweme said.
Some of the demands from the residents are the return of the city’s thermal
power station to the ownership of the people of Bulawayo and compensation
for all those whose property was damaged by power surges.
‘The residents want ZESA to reduce its load shedding and adhere to load
shedding schedules and they’ve also asked the company to work on its flawed
billing system and stop estimating bills,’ Saungweme added.