By AARON CHIYANZO & KETRA KALUNGAZESCO is suffering heavy losses as a result of subsidising domestic customers leading to the company accruing more debt to banks and independent power producers, Zesco senior manager for corporate affairs, John Kunda has said.Dr Kunda said Zesco sells power to domestic customers at about US cents 4.3/kWh and was vulnerable to foreign exchange rates, the tariff mismatches representing a subsidy of up to US cents 5.6/kWh.He said in as much as the cost of a new connection was borne by the customer, the power utility company was spending more on each connection.“As an example that for a standard connection in Kalingalinga, whilst the customer pays K769, the total connection costs including duplex cable, a meter, and labour as well as transport may range between K4, 500 and K5, 000,” Dr Kunda said in an interview.Dr Kunda also said connection fees have not been adjusted since 2005 despite the increase […]
Losses choke Zesco
