Fri, 12 May 2017 12:56:52 +0000 By SANDRA MACHIMA THE Policy Monitoring and Research Centre (PMRC) has asked Government and ZESCO to consider removing the “fixed monthly charge” to alleviate the impact on the poorest households in view of the new electricity tariff. PMRC executive director Bernadette Deka said the fixed monthly charge was currently only benefiting wealthy households. “PMRC’s research shows this rate leads to cross subsidisation of wealthy households and under usage by poorer households, effectively forgoing 100kWh of electricity,’’ she said. Ms Deka said to improve the way the subsidy was targeted, there was need to replace the current universal lifeline policy with a targeted usage and hardship based lifeline tariff policy that is only available to the poorest households. She said the current lifeline policy extends subsidies to all electricity users regardless of their income status, thus the majority of the benefits accrue to the wealthiest households. Ms Deka said given […]
