President Mnangagwa is expected to meet his South African
counterpart tomorrow to discuss whether Zimbabwe’s neighbour can export more
electricity to the country in light of the shortages being experienced.
The country is experiencing massive load shedding due to
low generation capacity at Kariba caused by low water levels while old
equipment at Hwange Power Station continuously breaks down.
President Mnangagwa announced the planned meeting while
addressing Domboshava residents during yesterday’s National Clean Up Day
campaign. “Last year, we opened Kariba South which produces 300MW on top of the
650MW produced by the other section but because of the drought the water levels
at Kariba have dropped and it is no longer producing adequate electricity,” he
said.
“. . . at the moment there is a shortage of electricity and
when I went to Mozambique, I talked to officials there to see if we can get
more electricity from Hydro Cahorra Basa and on Sunday I will meet South
Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa to discuss if we can get more electricity
from Eskom so if we succeed in the negotiations, the situation will greatly
improve.”
Zimbabwe paid US$10 million to Eskom as part of the at
least US$40 million owed to the South African utility. The President said there
a number of new projects in the pipeline meant to address the current
shortages.“When I went to China I met President Xi Jinping and they gave US$1,3
billion for Hwange Thermal Power Station 7 and 8 expansion that will give us an
extra 600 MW,” he said.
The President said construction of the Batoka Hydro
Electric Power Station was expected to commence soon after Zimbabwe and Zambia,
who will jointly own the station, selected US’s General Electric and China
Power for the US$4,2 billion project.
The project is expected to be completed in three years once
construction starts. The station will produce 2 400 MW which will be shared
equally between the two countries.
Meanwhile, President Mnangagwa explained to the people the
Government’s decision to introduce the new Zimbabwe currency.
“As you know when we embarked on the land reform the
British and her allies imposed sanctions on us and this resulted in the
weakening of our currency especially between 2008 and 2009,” President
Mnangagwa said. “This resulted in the Government adopting the multi-currency
system but as you know the US dollar became the dominant currency in the basket
with the currency being used in at least 85 percent of the transactions. But as
you know no country can prosper using other nations’ currencies because they
can withhold if you disagree on anything.”
He said it was because of that the Government decided to
ban the use of other currencies for local transactions. Herald
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