ZESA Prepaid System Outage Forces Customers to Offices

Zimbabwe's power utility, ZESA, announced a nationwide outage of its prepaid electricity system, requiring customers to physically visit ZETDC offices to purchase tokens. This technical issue has rendered online and third-party platforms unavailable, leading to significant disruption to daily life and commerce. The outage creates friction for millions of households and businesses reliant on prepaid electricity, highlighting concerns about the robustness of digital infrastructure. While ZESA attributes the issue to technical problems, the widespread disruption provides leverage for public demands for improved infrastructure investment and accountability from the state-owned utility. The ZESA system outage highlights infrastructure vulnerability, prompting public reliance on traditional service channels. The widespread disruption to electricity access increases operational costs for businesses, reduces productivity, and imposes financial burdens on households, affecting economic activity.