Proposed law to curb vandalism encouraging

LAST year, the country faced serious power outages that resulted in consumers experiencing up to 18 hours of load-shedding.

The reason for constrained power generation were many, but chief among them were fast receding water levels in Lake Kariba that saw the expanded Kariba South producing as little as 150MW against installed capacity of 1 050MW.

Generation at Hwange Thermal Power Station was also curtailed by intermittent breakdowns due to obsolete plant and equipment that has reportedly gone for years without proper maintenance.

This puts Zimbabwe in a precarious position that bids on the country to import electricity from Eskom of South Africa and Hydro De Cahora Bassa of Mozambique — countries that are also facing challenges.

As if poor power generation, compounded by ageing equipment and foreign currency shortage, was not huge enough, the country is confronted by serious threats of consumers pilfering electricity.

Some industrial and domestic consumers are stealing electricity, while others destroy transmission equipment to get copper wire and scrap metal for sale.

Such activities affect the economy.

Government should be lauded for taking decisive action this week that we feel if implemented without fear or favour, will see a drastic reduction in illegal connections and destruction to key transmission infrastructure.

Addressing journalists after a Cabinet meeting decision matrix on Tuesday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said Government approved the Principles for Proposed Amendments to the Electricity Act (Chapter 13:19).

The amendments will see the introduction of stiffer penalties for crimes related to electricity theft and the destruction of infrastructure.

The proposals were presented by Energy and Power Development Minister Fortune Chasi to Cabinet.

Zesa Holdings has had to contend with vandalism of key infrastructure and theft of transformer oil and copper conductors, resulting in it incurring expenses in replacing or repairing the infrastructure.

It is deplorable that to date, more than 930 transformers have either been vandalised or stolen in the northern region, 625 in the western region, 525 in Harare region and 94 in the east.

The vandalism and theft have made it difficult for Zesa to transmit the little energy being produced and imported.

Socially, hospitals in and around Harare have failed to get power for critical services.

On the other end, businesses have had to make do with fuel-powered generators which are expensive.

Electricity is among factors that have led to local companies producing expensive products that are not competitive on regional and international markets.

This has also limited the country’s capacity to generate foreign currency.

Vandalism is economic sabotage and we implore Government to craft stringent laws to protect key infrastructure.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) argues that Zimbabwe needs at least US$12 billion to address its infrastructure needs and it is counter-productive to allow the culprits to go scot-free.

A strong and clear message has to be sent out that crime does not pay and if arrested, the punishment is unbearable.

The proposed amendments have salient features that include reviewing the current penalty regime for identified offences to make the penalties more deterrent, classifying such offences under the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (Chapter 9:23), which governs heinous crimes including rape and murder and compelling the courts to impose mandatory sentences, as opposed to the option of fines, which may not be deterrent enough.

For instance, tampering with apparatus for generating, transmitting, distributing or supplying electricity with the result that the supply of electricity is cut off or interrupted, which used to attract imprisonment for not less than 10 years, will, under the amended law, attract not less than 30 years in jail.

It’s also encouraging that the Government will from timeto-time review such penalties to make them more deterrent to would-be offenders.

Over and above the stiffer penalties, the Government will ensure that adequate surveillance machinery is put in place.

This having been said, we propose that refusal or failure to pay for electricity used should attract a jail term or heavy fines over and above clearing the bill.