Africa-Press – Zambia. New Heritage Party leader Chishala Kateka has urged the government to be transparent and consultative as it advances its agenda on subsidies especially from electricity.
Mrs. Kateka said that the process of removing subsidies from electricity should involve the government being transparent and consulting stakeholders including the consumers, in the process, it wants to take.
The opposition leader added that government should interrogate ZESCO’S operational and investments costs, consider restructuring options for ZESCO that may optimize the operations of the company, and consider other means of capitalizing the institution.
Mrs. Kateka stated that if the need to cut subsidies still prevails, the government should then consider a stepped approach to ease the nation into the none subsidized tariff situation and that if only about 2% of the electricity is consumed by the ordinary and vulnerable, people who are genuinely supposed to be subsidized, then the government should also stratify the subsidies and remove them selectively while leaving the ordinary and vulnerable people out of the equation.
Mrs. Kateka said that there is a need to consider establishing a ZESCO committee composed of mostly former managing directors of the company, because they understand the business plus three other top-class engineers to be chaired by the ZESCO chairman, who is an accountant, to look into this matter.
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