eBusiness Weekly
Panashe Chikonyora
The Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce’s (ZNCC) says limited investment and energy infrastructure maintenance have contributed to around 90 percent of the country’s present energy challenges.
Zimbabwe’s energy challenges-characterised by prolonged power outages have seen the country’s industries and various business sectors being greatly affected, with some companies closing due to high operational costs.
Presenting a survey on the “Impact of energy challenges on business in Zimbabwe” at ZNCC’s 5th annual business review conference held last week, ZNCC chief executive officer Christopher Mugaga said its findings showed that the aged and incapacitated equipment at the country’s major power stations was adding on to the worsening of electricity challenges on top of other factors.
“Non-payment of consumers is 21 percent, shortages of water in Kariba is 12 percent and the major contributor that is lack of investment and maintenance of our equipment I think you can see it taking 90 percent in our presentation,” he said.
Other factors such as non-payment by politicians and consumers, water shortage in Kariba, inefficiency and corruption in energy sectors, theft and breakdown of equipment, debt to foreign suppliers and foreign currency Shortages to import contributed by 77, 21, 12, 89, 52, 67 and 43 percent respectively.
The survey included responses from 176 business entities across five regions of Zimbabwe (Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Masvingo and Gweru), with the manufacturing, agriculture, services and other sectors accounting for 62, 17, 12 and 9 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, making a similar presentation, Energy and Power Development Minister Fortune Chasi said Zimbabwe should see opportunities its neighbouring countries as it is not alone in terms of facing energy challenges.
He said he hopes that the country will widen its scope, so as not to rely on one type of power, but also look into nuclear energy, which would create opportunities for the country to export energy.
“I want to assure you that as Zimbabweans our vision is not only to expand the deficit that is in existence so far as power supply is concerned, of course we would like to have a balance between supply and demand, but we want to go beyond that.
“We see the shortages that exist in other regional countries as opportunities for us to export power and so this is our vision and we are determined to move along that path to ensure that we have power and energy security in the country and also so that we help our neighbours as we get assistance from others at this moment in time,” he said.
Minister Chasi attributed the energy challenges in the country to other factors such as drought, which he said greatly affected water levels at Kariba Power Station.
Lake Kariba’s water levels as of the second of December 2019 was 477,07 metres and this corresponds to 10,85 percent of live lack storage.
According to the Energy and Power Development Minister, water in the lake now has about 10 percent of live water that the country uses for electricity generation, limiting Kariba Power Station to a daily average generation of 190MW.
He said: “The electricity sub sector is reeling in power shortages due to curtailed generation at its traditional state owned hydro and thermal power sources whose total installed capacity is 2 300MW.
“The power supply situation continues to be strained since the first quarter of 2019 mainly due to the conspiracy against our country by nature,” he added.
