THE surge in vandalism of Zesa Holdings’ transformers and power cables in Bulawayo is worrying residents, who are going for months without electricity.
The power utility is currently struggling to cope with demands for restoration of the damaged infrastructure across the whole country.
On Friday, residents from various suburbs in the city expressed concern over escalating vandalism of electricity infrastructure and theft in such suburbs as Kensington, Njube, Northlea, North End, Emganwini and Nkulumane, among others.
They said last week, a wave of vandalism of Zesa transformers and power cables left many residents without electricity, prompting them to appeal to the power utility to urgently restore the infrastructure.
“There has been a wave of vandalism of transformers and transmission lines in various parts of Bulawayo’s low and high density suburbs. This Kensington area is being ravaged. A transformer was vandalised and cleaned of cables at corner Thompson Ave and Suzanne Street,” one resident said.
Another resident said their transformer was vandalised at night at corner Suzanne and Marshall streets and was left to drop to the ground.
Another resident said in Njube, five metres of LV cables were stolen during the same week.
“If this is the rate at which we are losing infrastructure over 48 hours, then we need to dig deeper,” a concerned resident said.
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Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association chairperson Ambrose Sibindi said: “This is a serious issue for which Zesa should come up with serious strategies to protect these transformers because if this continues, we will have serious challenges.
“There should also be working relations between the police and Zesa. It’s clear that people who are doing these are real professionals in that field. We cannot expect a layman to know how to dismantle the infrastructure without knowledge of it.”
Sibindi urged residents across the city to be on high alert to safeguard the power infrastructure from criminals.
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company Western Region regional manager Lloyd Jaji was not answering his cellular phone and did not respond to questions sent to his mobile number yesterday.
Last year, Zesa reported that it was losing over US$20 million per year due to vandalism and theft of electricity infrastructure and equated the criminal acts to economic sabotage.
Last month, Zesa said it lost more than US$11 million in over 3 000 cases of vandalism and theft in a period of two and a half years.
Zesa loss control general manager Festo Madembo told the media recently that from January to June this year, the company recorded 777 cases of vandalism and theft of Zesa infrastructure valued at US$1 million.
