In November, Dr Sydney Gata (SG) was appointed executive
chairman of Zesa in a move that was criticised by many. Two months into his
reign, Dr Gata says he has a clear vision to transform Zesa and address the
country’s biting power supply challenges.
Sunday Mail Chief Reporter Kuda Bwititi (KB) spoke to Dr
Gata on the situation at the power utility as well as his vision to revive
Zesa.
KB: Your appointment was greeted with criticism from some
quarters with some openly saying it was akin to recycling dead wood. What is
your response to the criticism?
SG: This is not the first time that my appointments have
been criticised. When I was first appointed as the first black lecturer at the
University of Zimbabwe’s Faculty of Engineering, as well as the first black
non-executive director of the then Electricity Supply Commission (ESC) in
September 1981, there was a lot of acrimony.
Since then, I have been appointed board member of the
Central African Power Corporation (1983-1989), the first black general manager
of ZESA (1986-1992), Zambezi River Authority board member (1989-1991), ZESA
executive chairman (2000-2002), ZESA Holdings executive chairman (2002-2006)
and founding chairman of the then Rural Electrification Fund.
So my record speaks for itself, and I challenge anyone who
says I am incompetent. I have four degrees in engineering and science from
internationally renowned institutions. So not only am I qualified for the job,
but I have a passion for engineering.
What should be understood clearly is that I have never
appointed myself to these positions. All these appointments were by invitation.
That shows that those who have appointed me are confident of my track record,
which is there for everyone to scrutinise.
KB: What is your response to those who say you are an old
hand with few ideas and that the post of executive chairman goes against the
principles of good corporate governance?
SG: I was accused by a judge of being too young in 1985 to
be a chief executive, now I am being told I am too old for the same. I am very
proud to have been recalled, for the fourth time to rescue the national power
supply system. It should be noted that my appointment as executive chairman is
the third such appointment to the same position and the position was confirmed
by a Cabinet resolution.
KB: Since your appointment, what have been the immediate
issues that you have been seized with at ZESA?
SG: There was the issue of staff and human resources
management. The standard process and procedures that had been developed for
many years had been destroyed. Morale was indescribably low. I also found out
that there was no longer the threshold minimum density of techno-industrial
skills necessary to operate a viable national power supply service.
There was widespread loss of key staff and professionals.
As of late last year, I discovered that Eskom of South Africa has over 450
ex-Zesa technical and professional experts that we trained and developed for
many years. In the United Kingdom, there are 72 graduate engineers at just one
institution, while in Australia one provincial utility has 65. What this means
is that operations and developments have been disturbed and we now have less
than the correct level of engineering development in the operations of Zesa.
Maintenance has suffered, customer service has suffered and
development has suffered, out of which my strategy is to re-establish an
intensive capacity building roadmap.
KB: What is your plan to revive this low staff morale and
brain drain?
SG: We launched a three-day general assembly of Zesa
employees and their managers drawn from every corner of Zimbabwe, who have
assembled here for an historic summit, where all the grievances that have been
expressed and were not attended to over the years, including the 2012
collective bargaining dispute, have been recompiled into an encyclopedia of
grievances.
That way, you start the New Year with industrial harmony
which is a pre-condition for productivity and peace at work. The second issue
at the general assembly is the strategic plan. We have gone a step higher in
responding to issues that have caused us to lose staff. This is to inspire and
motivate staff and increase the degree of care and support and address their
deepest concerns that include housing and transport to work. We will upgrade
the National Training Centre to offer research and development facilities.
We will also go into diverse new technologies such as
plasma physics, plasma gasification, plutonic geothermal energy, advanced wind
turbine generators, and many other such new technologies that have been
developed over the past 15 years and are fully commercialised. On transport, we
require 2 600 vehicles. We want to restore the 24-hour fault restore service,
so this requires transport. Most of the vehicles should be electric vehicles,
we must take the lead because we have 90 centres where we can roll out electric
charging points. So we will be putting charging points at all our terminals.
Another concern has been that Zesa spent US$17 million in
the last five years in legal fees for hired law firms fighting its own staff in
the courts.
There are a lot of law firms that have made money at Zesa
to fight its workers. I am going to have an independent panel to decide if we
need to get rid of our own people.
KB: How does this then relate with the fact that Zesa is
already planning to lay off workers under the re-bundling exercise to return
the parastatal to one unit?
SG: My first inclination is that I don’t believe in
throwing out people. I believe in creating opportunities for their
redeployment. There are many things that Zesa is buying that it could make. For
example, instead of buying solar panels, we can assemble them at our
workshops. If we can make a transformers,
we can make anything. I would like to re-deploy a lot of these people into two
categories, that is manufacturing equipment for the power system through
partnerships and licensing.
The second is installation of energy- related technologies
in rural areas. We can be able to have a nationwide micro irrigation
programme.
We can go there and install primary infrastructure for
water abstraction, underground and river, as well as drip irrigation, all
powered by solar panels. We can be able to manufacture the entire chain and
that is a business.
We want to restore public lighting in Harare and in so
doing, manufacture public lighting systems.
KB: A recent press report accused you of recycling
redundant employees and redeploying them at Zesa, what is your response to
this?
SG: As a stop-gap measure on human resources, we want to
create a pool of experienced professionals who are ex-Zesa and are local or in
the Diaspora so that we can never depend on external expatriates. They will be
assigned on short-term contracts to plug the holes in the management structure.
These are not coming to replace anybody because it is a
structure where these skills can be accessed and used as and when necessary.
The UK had a similar structure and at Eskom, they actually have a group
nicknamed “Grey Beards”, who are retired experts that are being brought back as
advisers to Eskom. I also have my “Grey Beards” who I believe can help me. It’s
not about the age, but the expertise.
KB: What is the update on implementation of the ZESA
forensic audit, which fingered some top management who are still currently at
the company, in illicit deals?
SG: It’s a massive audit. I have created a board committee
to look at it. I am supposed to implement its recommendations and I know some
of the current managers and old board members are involved. It has unearthed
massive irregularities.
KB: There have been allegations of arrogance against Zesa
employees in terms of responding to faults and breakdowns. How are you going to
address it?
SG: We are going to design a computerised system in terms
of attitude evaluation towards customers. This platform will ensure that every
genuine grievance raised by a worker will be published. We are also going to
attack vandalism, which is one mess.
KB: Finally, your strategy to address load-shedding?
SG: Electricity supply is set to improve. We are waiting
for the money that we raised from Afreximbank and will use it to clear arrears
with Eskom, EDM of Mozambique and Cahora Bassa, also from Mozambique.
What that means is we will then be in a position to import
more power. The two units at Hwange are being refurbished as we speak and will
add about 300MW of new power to the national grid this year. We expect the
water situation at Kariba to also improve. So I can say there will be an
improvement by end of February. Even more so at the end of March. Sunday Mail
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