Farai Dziva|Energy Minister Fortune Chasi has ordered ZESA to restore power supply to former President Robert Mugabe’s farm.

Last week ZESA disconnected electricity supply to farms owned by Mugabe and Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa over unpaid bills.

According to The Independent, former First Lady, Grace Mugabe reportedly approached Chasi for assistance to have power restored while working on a payment plan.

“As you know, Zesa is owed huge amounts of money by some of its clients and farmers are among the biggest culprits.
So it was decided that there should be no sacred cows and everyone indebted to Zesa must have the power disconnected at their properties.
This is how Mugabe and Mutsvangwa ended up having their farms disconnected. But they are not the only ones, there are hundreds others.

However, last week, the minister called management to a meeting and told them that they needed to immediately reconnect the affected farmers and work out a payment plan while allowing them to continue with their operations,” a source told the paper.

In response Minister Chasi said:

“What I can say is that last week ZESA disconnected several farmers, including some very prominent people who I cannot name, that owe it huge amounts of money on electricity bills.

Some of them then approached me and I decided that they should immediately be reconnected while we work towards a payment plan and to solidify payment arrangements.
Whilst disconnection is the ultimate weapon where people are not paying, the timing is not appropriate because we are having a food deficit and we need not be food insecure.
We could incur further costs at a time we are already having serious food shortages. So anything that worsens it would not be good for us.”