ZESA Switches Off Bulawayo Traffic Lights

Bulawayo motorists have, for the past few days, been exposed to heightened risks on the roads in the city after the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) turned off several critical traffic lights.

This is part of ZETDC’s enforcement of its prepayment system, which has left drivers navigating increasingly hazardous conditions.

The Bulawayo City Council is responsible for traffic lights in the city and according to the new regulations, the local authority has to purchase electricity tokens for them to be operational.

Last year, several suburbs in the city were left in the dark after the power utility switched off tower lights after upgrading them to the pre-payment system.

Sunday News observed that some of the traffic lights that have since been switched off include the ones at the intersection of Nketa Drive and Luveve Road, Birkenhead and Plumtree Road intersection, George Avenue and Gwanda Road intersection as well as Siyephambili and Nketa Drive intersection.

Responding to queries on the status of these traffic lights, the local authority’s corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said while the power utility had since last year been effecting the prepayment system on the traffic lights, the local authority was not privy to the programme of works so they are made aware beforehand which traffic lights were being introduced to the system.

She said the city’s traffic lights are classified as electrical loads and like any other powered infrastructure, require electricity to function and as a result, their operation is subject to standard billing by ZETDC for the energy consumed.

“The City of Bulawayo was made aware of the exercise in 2024 of converting traffic lights and street lights from conventional meters to prepaid metering. The City, however, does not have a programme of works or schedule of the areas where ZETDC is working on, to speedily attend to the registration and facilitate the electricity tokens.

“For the affected areas Council has done the necessary procedures for registration of these new prepaid meters and is awaiting submission of invoices by ZETDC to facilitate payment and electricity tokens,” said Mrs Mpofu.

She revealed that to keep a set of traffic lights operational, approximately ZWG3 000 per month is required per intersection.

Last year, the power utility switched off Bulawayo tower lights from postpaid metering as part of its migration to a prepaid model.

The exercise was met with residents’ uproar while the council claimed the tower lights were switched off without prior notice. ZETDC insisted there was communication before the exercise.

ZETDC started the national prepayment metering rollout project in 2012, targeting domestic and small commercial customers and has been conducting the exercise in phases since then.