Lesotho Electricity Company - Maseru

The Lesotho Electricity Company (Pty) Ltd (LEC) is wholly owned by the Government of Lesotho (GoL). It has been registered in terms of the Companies Act of 1967 (as amended) and established in 2006 in terms of the LEC (Pty) Ltd Establishing and Vesting Act 2006. The assets, liabilities, rights and obligations of the former Lesotho Electricity Corporation were vested in the company. Previously as a Corporation, LEC was established in 1969 in terms of the Electricity Act of 1967 and the Electricity Regulations of 1970. The company assumes a separate legal persona, and can sue or be sued in its own right. It is licenced to operate under the Lesotho Electricity Authority Act of 2002, as amended.

Before the LEC came into existence, the service of providing electricity was under the direct  

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control of the Government of Lesotho. A very small coal-fire generating plant was used to supply a handful of domestic consumers in the Maseru West and Old Europa areas, where the foreigners resided. This same plant also supplied the Maseru Administrative centre with power.

In 1965 the responsibility shifted to the Public Works government department. Thus in 1966, the idea of establishing a parastatal which would execute the provision of electricity throughout the country more efficiently, was vigorously debated. Mr. G. K. Herrmann, a German national now living in Spain, will always be remembered for his tireless efforts in convincing the government authorities about the need to establish a parastatal. He inevitably became the first Managing Director of the Lesotho Electricity Company from 1969 to 1971, when he left the country.

As the demand for electricity increased, an agreement was entered into between the Lesotho Government and Eskom of South Africa, to supply Lesotho with electricity, to supplement the one purchased from the ‘Muela Hydro-power station. In February 2005, LEC also entered into another power purchase agreement with Electricidade de Mocambique (EDM) of Mozambique. To date, LEC buys electricity from ‘Muela Hydro-power station (LHDA), Eskom and EDM through a 132kV and 88kV networks. In Qacha’s Nek, LEC purchases electricity from Eskom through a 22kV line from Matatiele in the RSA. Qacha’s Nek is the only district that is not connected to the main national grid.

The LEC Transmission network comprise of the following voltage levels 132kV, 88kV, 66kV and 33kV. LEC distributes with 11kV up to the customers supply point at 220V and 380V; though there are some places like Thabana-Morena where LEC distributes with 33kV. These are the lines that form LEC core business, and without them and its customers, LEC does not exist. The above categories of electricity transmission, distribution and supply infrastructure are planned, constructed and maintained by the Engineering Division, while the Finance Division is responsible for the accounting function and sales of electricity in the company.

The Corporate Services Division takes care of facilities and fleet management, administrative services, Public Relations and Marketing functions. Lastly, the Corporate Functions Division houses the Legal department & Corporate Secretariat, Internal Audit, Corporate Planning, Information Technology, Human Resources and Risk Management departments of the company.

LEC is believed to be one of the first parastatals, if not the first in the country. Today it remains the sole supplier of electricity in Lesotho. It was subsequently issued with a Composite License in terms of Section 50 of the Lesotho Electricity Authority Act of 2002, to transmit, distribute and supply electricity. It therefore has an obligation, in terms of the license, to supply power to all customers who are within its service territory. It is however, authorized to supply electricity throughout the country, even beyond the LEC service territory. The service territory is defined as the area around 3.5km of the existing distribution network. It is also responsible for economic procurement of power for its customers.

LEC facilitates the connection of new customers to the electricity grid, through their individual funding or under the Government’s rural electrification roll-out programme. The company is also the sole custodian of the electricity grid and has the mandate to sustainably manage the grid and associated assets. It performs these functions in order to provide reliable, sustainable, affordable and quality electricity supply to customers.

There are six business categories and two domestic categories among LEC’s classification of its customers. There are currently 192,589 customers served by the Company, though the number of domestic customers is continuously increasing. LEC’s customers are in the form of Domestic, {General purpose (small businesses) and Commercial} and Industrial categories, at 94.7%, 5.2% and 0.1% proportions respectively. The sale of electricity is through prepaid and post-paid meters for generating the Company’s revenue, thus the respective processes of electricity sale are vending and billing, for each customer category.​

Vending is done over various platforms employing different technologies while the billing part is still traditionally done through manual invoicing for large customers on a post-paid arrangement. Nevertheless, for this category of customers, the agreement is that if the customer defaults, then the power is cut-off and will only be reinstated once such a customer has made a payment.​