By OLIVER SAMBOKO
GREEN Party (GP) president, Peter Sinkamba has recommended that government should not waste money and time on commissioning another study on Zesco restructuring because there are already studies that were done and came up with same recommendations.
He said although the position of Green Party has always been that Zesco should be unbundled, care should be taken to ensure the move does not affect the power energy subsector.
Mr Sinkamba warned that the study will only deprive government of the much needed resources which otherwise can be channeled to needy areas.
Mr Sinkamba said his party has a problem with government intention to undertake another costly study when there are already other studies done in the past that had produced the same results.
He said in the best interest of the country, the government should act on the recommendations from previous studies to save resources.
“Even in our manifesto of 2015 and 2016, we indicated that Zesco should be unbundled to improve its efficiency,” he said.
Mr Sinkamba also said Government should be cautious in the manner it restructures Zesco to ensure that all the three suggested components will be profitable and not become a burden to the treasury.
Meanwhile, Mr Sinkamba has advised Zesco workers to brace themselves for hard times ahead because there is a more likelihood of mass job loses at the state power utility company should government go ahead with its intention to unbundle the company.
He said while General and transmission components will be profitable, the distribution component will likely make losses because of the huge backlog of unconnected customers who already paid connection fees but have not been added to the grid.
