The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE recent surge in power demand is a pointer to the growth of industrial activity in the country and is going to be matched by the completion of ongoing rehabilitation works at Hwange Thermal Power Station with Generator 7 set to be commissioned towards the end of the year, President Mnangagwa has said.
Hwange Thermal Power Station
He also attacked the National Social Security Authority (Nssa) for corporate malpractice which he said was confining workers into abject poverty and misery on retirement.
He said it was therefore becoming a thorn in the flesh of the Government.
Writing in his weekly column, President Mnangagwa said he was satisfied that the nation was ready for massive expansion in thermal power production, and for coking coal which is also required to turn the wheels of heavy industry, in line with the country’s local beneficiation goals.
“This year, I went back to commission Deka water pipeline which feeds into Hwange 7 and 8.
We are set on launching Generator 7 towards end of this year, possibly in November, and Generator 8 early next year, possibly in February.
All told, we will have some 600 megawatts added onto our grid, thus helping Zesa meet part of the ever-rising demand for more power.
One accurate way of measuring the pulse of an economy is through power consumption, especially by corporates.
This means there is a bright side to the power backlog: it points to growing mining and industrialisation in the economy, and thus an expanding mining and manufacturing sector.
This in turn creates more, better quality jobs, especially for our youths,” said the President.
He further revealed that the Government was also working on upgrading small thermal stations in Bulawayo, using Indian capital.
The President, however, lamented rules governing the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe which require that work is done within year-long supply contracts, in the double sense of supplier choice and tariffs, yet coal miners and merchants require to invest in huge, costly equipment, both to extract thermal coal and to convey it to the Zesa Station.
“This requires huge capital outlay, much of it accessed through borrowing.
Lenders can only do so on certainty of viable contracts which make banking sense.
Who lends to an operator with a mere year-long supply contract? Which borrower even wants the risk?
“On its part, Zesa requires buffer stocks which ensure the boilers keep boiling.
On such uncertainty? Meanwhile, we have this false constraint by way of senseless rules applied with equal senselessness by some body we call Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe? It is as if PRAZ is God-made, and run on a God-sanctioned commandment which must not be changed, let alone broken,” said President Mnangagwa.
Turning to Nssa, the President said the rot at Nssa should not be allowed to continue.
He questioned why a cash-rich institution with a wide remit on investment possibilities decides to stash millions of dollars.
He described Nssa as having become a thorn in the Government’s flesh with their never-ending corruption scandals.
“All it does is to give us headaches, while pushing workers into abject misery on retirement.
The time may have now come for us to re-locate the headache to where it should be suffered, namely in heads of those begetting corporate malfeasances, all to our collective detriment.
“Nssa will come right; speedily too, so it plays its designated role both as a social security vehicle and as a way of mobilising usable savings for this economy.
Its agenda was drawn up as broadly national; yet its performance and vista is parochial, in fact anti-worker and anti-national.
Going forward, it will do the right thing, making itself positively felt as a national institution which must play its part in cushioning and expanding our economy against shocks,” he said.
