BPC admits failure to reach prepaid conversion deadline

Prepaid conversion for homes and small businesses in Selebi-Phikwe and Francistown were due to have been completed in March and April respectively.The conversions began in January for both urban areas but BPC project manager Maikano Orapeleng admitted in an interview that they have not been able to reach their targets. He said that in Selebi-Phikwe they had targeted 8,199 homes, but they have been able to cover only 55 percent of the homes. "We were able to convert 4,529 homes and this is because we had some challenges that made us not reach the target we had set," he said.

Firstly, he said that they were not able to convert the BCL houses as most of their customers in the town were those employed by the company. "BPC took longer to communicate with BCL on how best they can have the meters in their houses converted because BCL is the one that pays for their employees," he said.Orapeleng said BCL was still going to talk to its employees so that they can find ways for the employees to be able to buy prepaid units for themselves.