Vandals are stealing oil from state-ZESA power authority transformers and selling it on to -- wait for it - fast-food outlets in the capital. The official Herald says the oil "is being used by unscrupulous businesspeople operating fast-food outlets mainly in Harare as cooking oil for frying chips and other food items." Not too good for one's health, especially in a country with such a compromised health system (Harare's in the grip of a rotavirus diarrhoea outbreak at the moment, apart from all the rest).
Apparently transformer oil is stable at high temperatures which makes it great for frying. Crippling power cuts have been the order of the day for most of the last 10 years: partly they're blamed on Zimbabwe's broken-down generation equipment, which means the country can't meet demand. But the cuts are also blamed on vandalism. The authorities have recently introduced very stiff prison sentences for anyone caught stealing ZESA cables or siphoning off transformer oil (you get a lot more years in jail for doing this than for murder).
Not surprisingly, the oil-for-chips story has upset a few parents. "I am a father of three; it disheartens me to think that each time my kids get into town they seek those chips. Imagine how many litres of transformer oil my kids have swallowed through these fast foods," wrote one man in today's paper.
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