Zim GBC News | Business Reporter
HARARE — ZESA Enterprises (Zent) is struggling to meet the national demand for transformers, requiring a capital injection of at least US$24 million per year to ramp up production and a further US$17 million to modernize its aging plant, officials have revealed.
The stark financial challenges emerged during a visit by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power. Zent officials stated that the company is currently producing only about 2,000 transformers annually, far short of its 6,000-unit target needed to achieve universal electricity access in Zimbabwe.
Zent’s Acting Managing Director, Godfrey Mugaviri, outlined the critical funding gap.
“We would need capital injection yearly, around US$24 million to be able to provide 6,000 transformers that get into the national grid,” Mugaviri said.
“We need more transformers to ensure that every Zimbabwean has the privilege to access electricity.”
The production crisis is compounded by a severe scourge of vandalism and theft, which cost the nation an estimated US$4.3 million in replacement costs last year alone. Festo Madembo, Zent’s General Manager for Loss Control, detailed the losses, noting that stolen transformer oil has even been traced to restaurants for frying food due to its high burn point.
In response, legislators are pushing for tougher penalties. Committee Chairperson Charlton Hwende stated that current 10-year jail terms are not a sufficient deterrent.
“We will be looking at maybe increasing [sentences to] 20, 30 years, because this is the kind of damage that these people do to constituents,” Hwende said, echoing earlier calls from Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe to remove the option of a fine for perpetrators.
Despite the challenges, Zent has made progress, increasing its annual output from just 200-300 transformers in 2021 to the current 2,000.
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