The Sunday News
THE Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has made great strides in electrifying rural areas in Matabeleland region after providing power to about 1 445 institutions since 2002, an official has said.
In an interview with Sunday Business, REA spokesperson Mr Johannes Nyamayedenga said they had made meaningful progress in the electrification of rural areas in a bid to promote development and enhance economic empowerment to the rural folk.
“As of 31 March 2015, we had electrified 669 institutions in the rural areas of Matabeleland North. In Matabeleland South, we have installed electricity at 776 institutions and these include schools, business centres, villages and farms,” said Mr Nyamayedenga.
He said at chiefs’ homesteads, they had installed solar systems.
Mr Nyamayedenga said countrywide, the agency had electrified 8 053 institutions in 13 years.
“At the moment we have 194 projects that are at various stages of completion,” he said.
Mr Nyamayedenga said they were on course to ensure all key institutions in rural areas are electrified by 2030.
“By 2013, we are targeting to have all the public rural institutions, be it a school, hospital or business centre, have access to some form of energy,” said Mr Nyamayedenga.
He added that they were content with the progress they had made so far.
“We are quite happy with the ground that we have covered so far especially at the schools. We have electrified 2 125 primary and 1 178 secondary schools. We are going to strengthen the use of renewable energy resources like solar energy and I am confident that we are going to meet our target,” said My Nyamayedenga.
He added that there were many entrepreneurs in rural areas who needed to be empowered through provision of electricity.
REA offers services that include providing electricity in rural areas in all its diverse forms such as the conventional grid electricity, installation of mini grid solar systems, developing mini hydro power generation stations, building biogas and biomass energy projects.
