Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) today launch their ‘Power to Poor People’ Campaign against the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC). The campaign will feature the signing of a petition dubbed the ‘Anti Abuse of Power’ Petition; completing of a time sheet of power cuts and the delivering of a ‘yellow card’ to the company. WOZA has campaigned for affordable and available electricity since 2006 with its ‘power to the people’ campaigns. The campaign is designed to put pressure on the company to stop disconnections until they are able to deliver a better service to their customers.
Last year members completed power cut times sheet in May and September. And in the next 2 weeks will once again complete a record whilst going door to door to obtaining signatures for the ‘anti abuse of power’ petition. Once the petition signing is complete the petitions will be taken to the Anti corruption and Monopolies Committee of Parliament to lobby mainly for a prepaid system of electricity. may-2011-petition1
Our demands are: 1. Stop cheating fixed meter consumers, we demand prepaid meters.
2. Please provide cheaper firewood, candles and matches, we do not want to destroy our environment by cutting down trees.
3. We are tired of 18 hour power cuts -provide proper timetables of load shedding.
4. Urgently put in place a proper and transparent billing system. Stop sending metered consumers estimates, send ACTUAL bills. 5. Create a smoother process of customer’s claims for compensation. 6. Review recruitment policy and bring salaries to decent levels with our current economic record. Professionalise staff performance and honesty. No more luxury cars we need transformers.
7. We will record the exact hours we receive electricity for the last 2 weeks of May while we get petition signatures which we will take to Parliament and demand they review your monopoly and poor service. You have cheated us for long enough, after we submit our demand to parliament we will organise a RED card Campaign. Be warned POWER TO THE POOR – ZERO service ZERO bill. HOKOYO!!
Last year, the response of the company was to have their security arrest WOZA leaders who spent 6 days in custody, 3 of those days the Independence Holiday. For last year’s Harare protest go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hEur0ceQ0. Also watch rough footage of the Valentines’ Day protest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2-PrFvmwQs
At 11am yesterday 200 Chitungwiza members marched to their City Council officers to demand water, they have had not water for over 2 to 3 weeks.
Ten members arrested in three batches from 28 February to 7 March who were tortured in custody had charges withdrawn by the state at 8:30 am this morning when they appeared at the Bulawayo Magistrates Court. The state decided to respect a Supreme Court ruling obtained by Williams and Mahlangu. The ruling granted that the two women had been wrongfully arrested and detained and, as a result, had their rights and fundamental freedoms violated. The full bench of the Supreme Court also found that the state had failed to protect the activists from this abuse. The two had spent 3 weeks in Mlondolozi Prison after a peaceful protest. 10th May 2011 For more information email info@wozazim.org. Visit our website at www.wozazim.org. You can also follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/wozazimbabwe or find us on Facebook. power-cut-time-sheet May 2011