State of the Energy Sector in Zimbabwe- full ministerial statement

THE HON. SPEAKER:  Order, order.  It will help Hon. Minister, if you run through your written Statement so that when there are issues arising, we can expand on the Ministerial Statement.

THE MINISTEROF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHASI):  As you please Mr. Speaker Sir.  I have dealt with the performance of Hwange.  We have challenges there due to obsolete equipment.  We need to put more power to make sure that it is operating at full throttle.  I also want to deal with thermal power.  We rely on coal and we do have coal supply challenges. Currently, ZPC is receiving coal supplies from two main suppliers, mainly the Hwange Colliery and I do not need to repeat the state regarding the state of that entity and its capacity.  The other one is Makomo.  The company also receives much smaller quantities from Zambezi Gas.  Of late, the thermal power station or power stations were facing coal supply challenges due to liquidity constraints, pricing as well as foreign currency shortages.  The price of coal was recently increased from $326. 50 to RTGS$886 per metric tonne in order to address the concerns of the suppliers.

Reduced Electricity Imports

Zimbabwe is a member of the Sothern African Power Pool (SAPP) and is interconnected to all its members.  Further, it is located at the regional geographical centre, making it the hub for power trading in the SAPP network.  ZETDC has power purchase agreements to trade electricity with ESKOM of South Africa and HCB of Mozambique.  The shortage of foreign currency in the country has had a negative bearing on electricity supply as ZETDC is struggling to meet its electricity is approximately $830 million.  As a result, of this, importers are reluctant to supply electricity to Zimbabwe and ZETDC is currently getting very minimum imports from outside.  Zimbabwe is also exporting 80 megawatts of power daily to Namibia in fulfilment of a loan used to fund ZPC’s contribution to the funding of the Kariba South Extension Project as required by the main financier, China Exim Bank.

Electricity Infrastructure Vandalism

This Mr. Speaker, is going to be a key determinant in the success or failure of the generation of electricity in the country and its distribution to the public.  Electricity infrastructure vandalism has also contributed to a number of areas having no access to electricity in the country.  Transformers are being stolen daily and there is a deficit at the moment.  I am told of 2000 transformers that were stolen that need replacement.  These transformers are not cheap and are as much as $50 thousand each.  It is necessary to take action to stem the thefts that are occurring

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