Responding to questions in Parliament on Wednesday, Energy and Power Development Minister Dr Samuel Undenge said ZESA has installed more than 570 000 prepaid meters since the inception of the programme but about 6 000 of the gadgets have failed to meet acceptable industrial standards.
Undenge said,
To date 575 667, have been deployed. Failure rate has been within acceptable industrial standards except meters supplied by ZTE that exhibited high failure rate. ZTE contract was cancelled as a result of high failure rate. Total number of metres that failed to date is around 6 000 which translates to one percent of the installed base.
He said due to the meters’ shortage, it had taken long to replace some of the gadgets failing at site but there was a plan to replace all faulty metres as soon as the next delivery is received to replace those failing within the warranty period.
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