Devolution and even Development
Also salutary and making a huge difference to our overall performance has been the Devolution Programme. The impact of programmes and projects implemented under the programme has been positively felt right down to communities which now have a direct role in drawing up priorities.
Several infrastructures for social services, principally in key sectors of public health and education, have been completed in record time, thereby bringing these much-needed services closer to targeted communities. Devolution Policy has enabled us to spread development evenly across all the provinces which make up our nation, thus making sure no one and no community is left behind.
Modernising our roads
Our infrastructures have been receiving intense attention. The most noticeable of these has been the road subsector. The dualisation of the Beitbridge-Harare Highway is almost complete. The coming year, 2023, will see us embarking on the second leg of dualising this critical highway, picking it up from Harare to right through to Chirundu. Equally, we will start work on dualising the Beitbridge-Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Highway, itself an artery of our tourism.
Developing seamless border service
The modernisation of our highways has gone hand in hand with that of our border posts, starting with the Beitbridge Border. We are targeting Forbes, Chirundu and Plumtree in the coming year so our country becomes a veritable transport hub which geography has already declared it to be.
In the same vein, we have to revamp our entire rail network to enhance our inter-modal transport capacity. The open-skies policy we have adopted on air traffic should see us enjoy more arrivals which boost our tourism while we rebuild national capacity for air travel.
Challenges in energy sector
I would be dishonest to create an impression that the year 2022 has been without its challenges. It delivered a few headaches whose resolution we continue to work towards. One such challenge is that of energy and power.
The irony of it all is that this challenge has been bred by our phenomenal success in growing our economy and in attracting new investments.
The rapid growth and expansion in both mining and industry, coupled with new investment projects across sectors, has increased demand for power, created a clear mismatch between power generation and supply on the one hand, and power demand and distribution on the other. Nor has nature helped, what with climate change-related progressive decline in water inflows into our Kariba Dam, itself our biggest source of power. As I write, Kariba’s power generation capacity has drastically fallen from its installed capacity of 1100 megawatts to a mere 100 megawatts. Our capacity for thermal power has also fallen due to the aged six generators we developed soon after independence.
Taking extraordinary measures
Government has decided to treat this constraint with the same focus and intensity we accorded the Covid-19 pandemic. Extraordinary measures are needed and will be taken in the coming year. With the US$310 million we now have to refurbish and replace old generators 1 to 6 at Hwange, coupled with the coming on stream of generators 7 and 8 early next year, we should see an appreciable improvement in power supply early in the coming year.
We must now plan for our power generation and supply as if Kariba is discounted from our energy supply matrix, so we have at least 2000 megawatts from non-hydro power sources.
That way, we weather-proof our energy sector and with it, our whole economy. I have already instructed Government to remove all and any entry barriers to new investments in the energy sector.
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