ZESA Enterprises says it needs US$24 million per year to achieve the national goal of universal electricity access and an upper-middle-income economy status by 2030.
The call made by Zent acting managing director Godfrey Mugaviri comes at a time when there has been a spike in cable theft, vandalism and acute power shortages in the country.
“ZETDC [Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company] requirements range around 6 000 transformers for us to be able to achieve the universal access of electricity to all Zimbabweans,” Mugaviri told a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy, which had visited the company.
“So we would need capital injection yearly, around US$24 million, to be able to provide 6 000 transformers that get into the national grid. We need more transformers to ensure that every Zimbabwean has the privilege to access electricity through our national grid,” he said.
Mugaviri said there was also a need for new equipment at the Zent, as they are using old equipment.
“We have made our technical assessment and approximately we need about US$17,4 million to ensure that we modernise this plant. The buildings are here and the infrastructure is here; all that we need is the machinery for us to be able to channel the transformers into our national economy.
“According to export markets, we have moved across the region and we have delivered transformers to Zesco in Zambia, Lesotho, Mozambique and DRC,” Mugaviri said.
Committee chairperson Charlton Hwende gave a positive overview of the enterprise's milestones but emphasised the urgent need to address challenges through the legislative process.
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“From their presentation and from what we have seen here, we have seen a lot of positive developments. The transformer manufacturing section is now able to manufacture around 2 000 transformers from around 200 to 300 which they used to do in around 2021.
“So there's been a massive jump and we want to see how the government can support them with further funding, because obviously there is still a huge gap in terms of the demand for transformers,” Hwende said.
He said there was a need to review the laws on vandalism and impose stringent penalties.
“We still see a lot of vandalism and as Members of Parliament, during this session we will be looking at ways in which we can assist them so that we don't have the current situation where transformers are stolen.
“I know currently, if you are caught vandalising, you go for 10 years, but I think 10 years has not been deterrent enough, so we'll be looking at maybe increasing to 20, 30 years, because this is the kind of damage that these people do to constituents.”
Meanwhile, Zent general manager — loss control Festo Madembo, said vandalism of infrastructure was costing the power utility.
“As a nation, we are actually losing quite a substantial amount of money as a result of vandalism of national infrastructure. Just last year, we lost equipment valued at around US$4,3 million, and this is just a replacement cost and not an economic loss to the nation,” Madembo said.
“So now we are working in collaboration with Powertel, contracted to install a system on our transformers so that a signal is sent when someone is trying to steal and then a response will be done,” he said.
