The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) has once again warned customers that electricity tokens can be bought on any day of the month following reports that people are once again complaining over failure to buy the tokens at the beginning of the month.
On Wednesday, most people like what happened during last month, complained that they were failing to buy the tokens while some banks were reportedly failing to process the purchases online.
“The customer perception that power is cheaper at the beginning of the month is not correct and was leading to very high transaction volumes at the beginning of each month, resulting in the significant slowing down of the vending system,” said ZETDC in a statement.
Some customers alleged that there was a deliberate move to jam platforms such as mobile money platforms when purchasing the tokens at the beginning of the month.
“We buy tokens at the beginning of the month so that we get our 200units and most of the time we cannot do that because Ecocash and banks will be down when you try to purchase.
We are forced to come to town to purchase the tokens at the Zesa offices and the few agents that will be selling, ” said Mr Moses Mhlanga who was queued at a Zesa banking hall in Bulawayo.
The banking halls are charactarised by long queues on the first day of the month as people will be trying to purchase tokens directly from Zesa.
The problem has been exacerbated as most households have instead of buying on any other day of the month have timed that they buy the tokens on the first day of the month.
Some banks also reportedly sent messages informing their clients on their failure to purchase tokens as the system was down.
“We spend a lot of time in these queues trying to purchase tokens putting our lives at risk of the coronavirus as there is no social distancing that is being practiced. If only mobile platforms could be up, it would make our lives easier and also ensure our safety,” said Miss Talent Makaza who was trying to purchase tokens via ecocash.
ZETDC also announced that it was adding another low cost band to their tariffs.
“ZETDC is please to announce the introduction of a lower priced tariff band in order to improve the customer experience with the new tariff and being a positive response to customer requests for lower priced units beneath the premium band effective 12th June 2020,” the company said.
The new tariff band consists of 100kWh which stretches from 2001to 300kWh will therefore cost $312.
