By HOPE BWALYA –

KABOMPO Secondary School pupils in North-Western Province on Monday evening run amok and stoned Zesco offices in the area in protest at persistent power outages.
Zesco spokesperson Henry Kapata said the pupils stoned the offices because of a power outage that lasted for 20 minutes.
Mr Kapata said in an interview yesterday that the company reported the matter to police and asked the school to pay for the damage caused by the pupils.
However, North-Western Province Police Chief Grace Chipalila said the pupils almost rioted over erratic power supply to the school.
Ms Chipalila said quick action by police prevented massive damage to the Kabompo Zesco offices as the pupils retreated immediately the police were called in to maintain order.
She said the incident happened around 18:00 hours on Monday.
Meanwhile, Mr Kapata said the company had contracted a Swedish constructing company to work on the power station intended to connect the province to the national grid.
He said the power station project would cost US$165 million and that Eltel Network was already on site.
The project is as a result of the agreement between Zesco, Nodia bank of Sweden and Standard bank of South Africa.
Mr Kapata said the construction of a power station connecting the province to the rest of the country was a permanent solution as it would help the company save the money it was spending on diesel transformers.
Mr Kapata said the company had procured five diesel generators to be distributed in districts in the province as an interim measure.
He said Kabompo and Chavuma were among the districts that would receive the generators.
Mr Kapata also disclosed that 27 transformers countrywide were tampered with from January to December last year.
He said most transformers had oil siphoned from them.
He said Zesco was currently undertaking several projects to increase electricity supply capacity in the country.