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Angela Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) has said it will be upgrading its system from tonight until Sunday and urged people to buy electricity before the exercise to avoid inconvenience.

In a statement, the parastatal said it will be upgrading its Electricity Vending System from 10PM today and expects to complete the work by 4PM on Sunday.

“The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) would like to advise its valued customers countrywide that the Prepaid Electricity Vending system will undergo a scheduled maintenance and upgrading exercise from 2200hrs on Friday to 1600hrs on Sunday to improve its operational efficiency and quality of service delivery.

ZETDC further advises that during that planned maintenance period, customers won’t be able to purchase electricity units normally and they are encouraged to buy enough power to sustain them during this planned upgrading period,” reads the statement.

The interruption comes at a time when many western suburbs in Bulawayo are experiencing intermittent power outages that started over the weekend.

In an interview, ZETDC Western Region general manager Engineer Lloyd Jaji said the power outages were as a result of vandalism by copper cables thieves.

Cable theft – Image taken from Shutterstock

“The increased power outages are as a result of vandalism by copper cable thieves and the worst affected are those areas that still have copper cables. We are attending to these power outages almost every night. He said the situation has greatly improved in suburbs where the copper cables have been replaced by aluminium,” he said.