Pay up or face blackout — Zimbabwe told

By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |

Zimbabwe owes South Africa’s Eskom and Mozambique’s Hydro Cahora Bassa (HCB) a combined $27 million that it must service by December or the country will be cut off power supplies from the two regional neighbours.

Zimbabwe gets about 30 percent of its national energy supplies from Eskom and HCB from which it imports about 350 megawatts (MW) and 50MW, respectively.

The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority is currently struggling to generate half of the country’s national demand, which is estimated at 1 600 megawatts (MW).

Zimbabwe has been importing from Eskom and HCB while procuring 100MW from the Dema power plant.

Harare owes Eskom $18 million while the remainder is due to HCB.

The debts have been accumulating over the years.

From last year, local supplies improved notably after government managed to secure prepaid services with external suppliers.

HCB is reported to have insisted on the arrears being cleared by end of November, while Eskom gave Harare up to end of December.

The weekly Financial Gazette quoted Julian Chinembiri, the managing director (MD) of the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), confirming mounting debt woes.

“They (Eskom and HCB) have understood our economic challenges and have given us a grace period to clear our arrears,” said Chinembiri.

“Eskom gave us up to December 2016 while HCB gave us up to the end of November to clear the arrears. At the moment we are enjoying stable power supply and we would want to keep supplies as they are and ensure that load shedding does not occur,” he added.

The MD said the prepayment arrangements with both suppliers subsisted.

The country has, for, almost a year enjoyed steady supply of electricity after the power utility secured power imports to plug a generation gap in the country caused by low local generation capacity. Nehanda Radio