30-years for Zesa vandals

By Shalom Manguni

Energy Minister Fortune Chasi has warned individuals, who will be caught vandalising ZESA cables and transformers that they risk being jailed for 30 years.

Speaking during a National Energy Annual Innovations Summit, Minister Chasi said if one tampers with ZESA cables or transformers, one will be jailed for 30 years.

“There are very critical issues of vandalism which are unprecedented around transformers and cables and every day we get more or less than five if these incidents.

“This has left us relying heavily on the thermal power plant at Hwange to produce electricity for our industries and domestic consumers.

“If we find anyone with two litres of transformer oil, one will be imprisoned for 30 years as well.

“We are now close to 3 000 transformers stolen, the unfortunate part is that people are dying trying to steal ZESA cables and transformers.

“Two people died in Bulawayo trying to steal and we strongly believe that a lot of it has something to do with people in ZESA.

“We are now looking for millions of dollars to replace the stolen transformers, we have an idea on how to deal with this but the spread of this activity against the country is shocking,” he said.

Chasi said there will be no tolerance to such culprits.

“I want to warn them that we won’t allow them to continue to bring down own our country. In some areas seven kilometres of cables have been stolen and we are tolerating this, “he added. H Metro