The ManicaPost
The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) Holdings on Monday said the country risked massive load shedding due to lack of foreign currency to pay for power imports from neighbouring countries.ZESA is currently importing electricity from South Africa and Mozambique to offset power deficit. ZESA chief executive officer Engineer Josh Chifamba told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy that at the moment, the power utility was getting less than half of its weekly foreign currency requirements from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) which is managing the company’s nostro account.
Nostro account refers to an account that a bank holds in foreign currency in another bank. The term is derived from the Latin word for ‘ours’ and is frequently used to facilitate foreign exchange and international trade transactions.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is the one mobilising foreign currency for institutions which require funding for foreign international transactions.
“We are being given $1,5 million per week where we require $5 million a week,” said Eng Chifamba. “We are, as we stand, having some arrears on both accounts which are Eskom of South Africa and Hydro Carbora Bassa of Mozambique. We are not getting enough funds allocated by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to service those accounts,” he said. Eng. Chifamba said Zesa had to make arrangements with some customers to beef up the RBZ allocation.
“We have had to come up with some innovative strategies whereby we are talking to our customers in the export business so that they cede to us part of what they retain from their export proceeds so that we can help alleviate this problem.
“But this will be money, additional to what we are being allocated by the RBZ,” he said.
He said should shortage of foreign currency persist; Zimbabwe may be plunged into darkness.
“So there is a serious challenge, serious risk and should that happen, then we will go to massive load shedding,” he said.
Eng Chifamba added that at times Zesa had to get more than the normal 100 Megawatts of electricity from the Dema emergency power plant as it sought to establish its benefit to the economy.
The plant, which is currently generating 100 MW, was set up to provide additional power supplies after the country’s main producer; Kariba faced production challenges due to declining water levels.
“There are instances when we actually were curtailed and we had to go above 100 megawatts from Dema. Should that happen we would probably want 500 megawatts of power from Dema and that will be serious for the country,” he said. – New Ziana.
