Poor funding curtails transformer production in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe: ZESA Enterprises (Zent) says its power transformer production has been curtailed by poor funding.
Image source: Zimbabwe Situation
Zimbabwe: ZESA Enterprises (Zent), a subsidiary of State-run power utility Zesa Holdings Limited with a mandate to produce power transformers, says its operations have been curtailed by poor funding.
Last week, the firm said it required about $7.2 M per year to produce between 250 and 300 transformers every month.
Zent acting managing director Burusa Mandipezano told in a press release that the firm was at the time getting $4 M per year, a far cry of the funding it requires to help Zimbabwe overcome its long running power shortages.
“If we get $600,000 every month, it will be good enough for us to continue producing between 250 and 300 transformers every month,” Mandipezano said. “Currently, we get a tranche of about $4 M. So, if you divide that figure by $600,000, it will take us about six months,” he said.
However, he said Zent was on the verge of securing a $10 M facility to recapitalise and automate its operations. Mandipezano said the facility will be used to procure raw material for transformers and automate the plant. He said the firm was under-capacitated because some its assets were old and the equipment was old and inefficient.
“We have already started the procurement process, we have identified suppliers. So, we are just waiting for the approval of the money so that we can issue our orders and get this machinery,” the Zent chief said. “We also want to do import substitution where we are going to reduce the import bill, especially on transformer oil where we are going to regenerate the used oil and regenerate it into usable oil, so that we can reuse it in transformers.”
The company has a backlog of more than 2,000 transformers.
Source: Zimbabwe Situation