Let’s talk ZESCO. Dismissal or Not?

By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba

Let’s talk ZESCO. Dismissal or Not?

First, last month credible information filtered that the ZESCO Board had sent its Managing Director, Victor Mapani on forced leave pending investigations in corruption allegations and irregular appointments.

But Board Chairperson, Vixon Ncube came blazing that the information was wrong and Mr. Mapani had just gone on his official leave and holiday.

This brought more questions than answers. How can the ship captain seek to sleep and holiday when the vessel is threatened with sinking?

And there were more questions on why ZESCO continued to export power while the country faced one of the worst load-shedding and power cut crisis.

Reports now indicate that last week, the Board sat and unanimously voted to dismiss Mr. Mapani for alleged incompetence, corruption and for bringing instability in the national power utility.

Further, following this development, reports indicate that Minister of Energy, Hon. Peter Kapala began to engage the Board members to dissuade them from their action as Mr. Mapani was a direct appointee of President Hakainde Hichilema in his capacity as IDC Board Chairperson(another past irregular feature).

Further, the Managing Director, who is on a hefty salary of K750,000 per month(without allowances) and his gratuity of K30million is due in a couple of months, and may therefore not be willing to vacate his office.

A discordant in Corporate governance and hierarchy chaos.

It is therefore important that Government gives a formal statement on such a serious matter…for ZESCO is at the centre of the current and prevailing crisis negatively affecting our people.

The power cuts have been ruinous to all business and have been foretold to last until next year.