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Flora Fadzai Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter
RESIDENTS in Bulawayo’s Kingsdale suburb have gone for three weeks without electricity following the theft of power cables in the area.

Fuming residents said they reported the theft to Zesa but no action has been taken.

Ten homes have been affected.

In an interview, a resident Mr Bongani Dlamini said the first batch of cables was stolen three weeks ago and the thieves returned last week to steal again.

Mr Bongani Dlamini

“The thieves first came three weeks back at around 2AM. I heard them. However, l could not go outside as l was scared for my life. We reported the matter to Zesa and they promised to come. However, as you can see they still have not come. What is now worse is that the thieves came back again a few days ago to finish off what they had started. This means they are still going to come for more cables,” said Mr Dlamini.

He said not having electricity is affecting them at many levels..

“As it is we had meat in our refrigerators which has gone bad. We also use electricity to pump water so without electricity it means we do not have any water. As you can see l am a small scale tomato farmer and my tomatoes are withered because of lack of water.”

One of the homes affected

Mr Mbongeni Dube, another resident, said the lack of electricity is making it hard for his daughter.

“I have a daughter who is currently doing her form four. She is preparing for her final examinations so she should be studying. It is now hard for her to study as there is no electricity to charge her phone and laptop. As we all know children now access all their books digitally. So she has no other alternative and this time that she is losing, she will not be able to recover it. I hope Zesa will do something fast because it has been too long now,” said Mr Dube.

He say it would be best if Zesa were to replace the copper cables with aluminium so that such scenarios could be avoided. “I would suggest that the zesa company remove these copper cables just like they have been doing in many suburbs. That way these scenarios would be avoided in the future. Because as it is right now we know they will say we should buy the cables from our pockets only for them to be stolen again,” said Mr Dube.

Efforts to get comment from Zesa were unsuccessful.