BULAWAYO’S Kensington residents are facing double tragedy as transformer thieves continue to ravage the suburb on the back of unrelenting countrywide power outages.
Kensington residents have called on the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) to come up with measures to deal with the problem.
One of the residents, Fortune Moyo said: “Transformers are being stolen a lot. We do not know what is happening. We have been plunged into darkness and businesses are suffering due to power outages, while perishable items are going bad.”
Another resident, Tendai Chigubhu said theft of electricity infrastructure had forced them to use alternative power sources such as generators and solar, which are, however, proving to be expensive.
ZETDC regional manager Lloyd Jaji confirmed receiving many reports from residents.
“I receive these complaints almost everyday; the problem is nationwide, not just in Kensington. We want to assure residents that there is something we are doing about the situation, we are not ignoring the matter. We are trying to do target hardening on these transformers so that it is difficult for the thieves to take them down,” said Jaji, adding that the sad thing was that the thieves stole a whole transformer just to extract copper.
