The Sunday News
THE African Development Bank (AfDB) is set to fund the reinforcement of Marvel substation in Bulawayo in a bid to reduce outages related to equipment maintenance, an official said.
Zimbabwe Multi-Donor Trust Fund manager Mr Emmanuel Nzabanita said plans were under way for the 2015 projects to start although he could not disclose how much it would cost saying funding estimates are still confidential at this stage but disclosed that the projects will include power transformers and circuit breakers.
“We will be reinforcing Marvel 330kV substation but costs estimates are still confidential as the tendering process has not yet been done. This project will also provide additional power to the consumers thus avoiding overloading the existing transformers in the city,” said Mr Nzabanita.
ZimFund is a board administered by AfDB formed to mobilise resources from donors to contribute to early recovery and development of the country
He said the project was expected to begin in the second quarter of this year.
Mr Nzabanita said the implementation of phase two of the water and electricity projects will begin soon with bids from contractors expected to start this month.
Speaking on what AfDB and ZimFund have managed to achieve, Mr Nzabanita said they undertook rehabilitation works at Hwange Power Station, which were expected to be completed in January this year as well as installing the Harare and Bulawayo underground electricity systems.
“Last year we managed to commission several projects including seven power substations in Mazowe, Atlanta, Norton, Criterion and Mpopoma (Bulawayo), Stamford and Ponoma as well as install over 460 distribution transformers countrywide,” he said.
The projects undertaken by ZimFund on power generation are meant to improve the provision of adequate and reliable power supply in an environmentally sound manner.
The rehabilitation of the sub-transmission and the distribution networks will improve system reliability and allow the restoration of supply services to about 22 000 customers in various neighbourhoods across the country that presently have no access to electricity services.
