Prepaid electricity meters for Mbare flats

By Helen Kadirire

Harare City Council (HCC) will soon install prepaid electricity meters at all its 58 Mbare flats. HCC spokesperson Michael Chideme said council has been paying high electricity bills for the flats, which have 7 334 units.

This comes as the city had on countless occasions engaged residents of the flats with the intention to introduce the meters but was met with fierce resistance.

“The resolution to remove the bulk meter was made some time ago but now we are implementing it. Every apartment will have its own meter and will individually bear the costs of the power that they want to use,” Chideme said.

Resources Management team leader Agnes Masuku last year told delegates during a half term rapid results review that the electricity consumption was the highest that council was paying.

The high electricity bill comes as the city is looking to engage the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) to reduce the tariff for council.

“We want to now introduce a system were electricity meter readers are accompanied by council water meter readers. In the Mbare hostels alone, the bill for October was almost half-a-million dollars and this was said to be actual billing. We want to reduce the fear of estimates by making sure that we are billed for what we consume,” Masuku said.

Council plans to have power generated from the biogas digesters it is constructing in Mbare to alleviate the electricity problems

HCC engineer Calvin Chigariro said council and Zesa were in talks so that council can feed the generated power into the grid of Zesa lines running parallel to the Mbare hostels.  DailyNews