The impact of electricity power cuts in Mkoba high density suburbs of Gweru city, Zimbabwe

The study sought to explore the impact of electricity power outages on the residential consumers of Mkoba high density suburbs in Gweru city, Zimbabwe. Fundamentally, the examination of this topic has been stimulated by criticism of erratic and unreliable power supply to residential consumers in spite of the several advance payments made by consumers to the power utility company. The qualitative research approach was used to solicit various ideas, opinions, perceptions and attitudes on the impact of power outages to consumers despite the recently introduced electricity prepaid meters hoping for an improved power supply. Data were collected through face to face interviews, focus groups and open ended questionnaires. Purposive sampling was employed to collect data for this study. Data were thematically analysed in line with the qualitative research approaches. It emerged from the empirical findings of the study that residential consumers are heavily affected by incessant load shedding. The unreliable and unplanned cuts have damaged refrigerators, radios, television sets, electric stoves and many other electrical appliances. Consumers are incurring huge costs against the depreciation of their living standards. This study recommends that the power utility ZESA must encourage consumers to switch to the use of solar, gas and other accessible forms of power. Also ZESA through government needs to invest heavily in the generation, distribution and maintenance of electricity supply to consumers and other productive sectors of the economy. There is also need for a deliberate policy by government to engage the local and international stakeholders to stimulate direct foreign investment.