Supa Mandiwanzira, Zimbabwe’s former Minister of Information Communication Technology, has unleashed a scathing critique of the government’s disorganisation, citing it as the primary hindrance to effective resource utilization, particularly in the energy sector.
Mandiwanzira, the Zanu PF MP for Nyanga South, was debating President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s State of the Nation Address in Parliament last week, where he noted that Zimbabwe’s attractiveness to investors could be enhanced by cheaper electricity.
He, however, praised the President’s support for clean energy but stressed that the country’s disorganisation is hindering its ability to provide affordable electricity.
He highlighted Zimbabwe’s vast coal resources, which could be leveraged to drive economic growth, just as it did for Europe.
“I know sometimes we get carried away by the global thrust and global drive towards new energy but the reality is that electricity – if we were organised in this country, electricity must not cost what it costs today to Zimbabweans. We were given huge resources of coal by God.
“That coal is what drove the economic growth of Europe and this is our turn to use our resources to drive our own economic growth,” Mandiwanzira said.
He cited Germany as an example, where coal energy generates 54 gigawatts of electricity, powering the country’s industrial growth.
In contrast, Zimbabwe produces only 2,000 megawatts of electricity. He argued that utilising coal resources could reduce electricity costs to less than six cents per kilowatt hour.
The former minister also referenced the United Nations Climate Change decision, which allows developing countries to phase out coal by 2050. He advocated for investing in coal energy to build Zimbabwe’s economy, creating jobs, and growing the mining and agriculture sectors.
“Germany relies on 54 gigawatts of their electricity coming from coal. Just for everybody to understand, 54 gigawatts is 54 000 megawatts of electricity. That is what Germany is producing from coal.
“We only produce about 2 000 megawatts of electricity in our country. Germany is producing 54 000 megawatts from coal, which we are all rushing to phase out because we want to please the global agenda of a cleaner world,” Mandiwanzira stated.
“Let us build our economy first.
“Let us generate electricity that is cheaper, which will allow more companies to invest in our country, our mines to grow; our agriculture to irrigate 24/7 and our people to cook with electricity at their homes.
“I am encouraging us. I know as Parliament we are the ones who adopt these agreements but we must understand that we have an opportunity to grow our country quicker and faster if we promote coal energy because God has granted us those resources.”
Zimbabwe’s energy shortages are the result of a combination of aging infrastructure, malicious damage, and adverse weather conditions. The Hwange Power Station, a critical component of the country’s energy grid, is struggling with outdated equipment.
At the same time, the devastating effects of the El Niño drought have caused water levels to plummet at Lake Kariba, a vital source of hydroelectric power.
Minister of Energy and Power Development, Edgar Moyo, recently revealed that the government was exploring nuclear energy as a potential solution to the crisis. The Minister said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was providing guidance throughout the process.
“The other area is on nuclear,” the Minister stated.
“As Zimbabwe, we have expressed our interest to the International Atomic Energy Agency of our desire to get into nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. They are with us and they are taking us through.
“Committees have been set up, which are looking into that and there are milestones that we have to meet as a country before we get to the stage of developing small modular reactors so that our contribution to the clean energy mix is heightened.
“So, we hope these are some of the things, programmes and projects which are going to increase our contribution to the energy mix of clean energy.”
Below is the full speech by Mandiwanzira in Parliament
Thank you very much Hon. Speaker Sir. I just need to make it very clear that I did not say the Hon. Member is confused.
What I said is what he said adds to the confusion that is there around the issue of sanctions, which is that there are many stories being peddled about the removal of economic sanctions against this country.
My point remains, we want to acknowledge His Excellency, President Mnangagwa’s economic leadership in driving this country forward even under economic sanctions that still exist.
I just want to make this point which is the last point about economic sanctions. In the United States, they have a law on sanctions against Zimbabwe and the Member is free to go on the internet, right now it has not been repealed.
That law has elements to it that bar representatives of the United States or international organisations like the IMF and World Bank to vote against any funding allocations to Zimbabwe.
That law still exists, therefore, I do not want us to debate something that is there in the public domain.
I would like to commend His Excellency’s approach in steering development in our country. His mantra that no place and no one should be left behind is well articulated in his State of the Nation Address as he mentioned the 35 000 business units at every village in our country that are being developed by his Government. This is phenomenal, he mentioned the support to this programme by the Presidential Borehole Drilling Programme.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I really wish our local authorities who receive funds under the Devolution Fund could allocate significant amounts towards investment in infrastructure equipment, for instance, borehole drilling rigs to drill boreholes in every village in support of this programme by His Excellency.
The current situation is that the local authorities are waiting for the President to send DDF which is now RIDA, to go and drill the boreholes and yet they can take instruction from the President’s policy, buy the necessary equipment including borehole rigs and go ahead to implement the President’s policy. I would encourage the private sector and the local authorities to join hands in implementing His Excellency’s policy which he articulated as well during the State of the Nation Address.
Mr. Speaker, we have seen significant investment coming into the country as a result of the efforts of the New Dispensation under President E. D. Mnangagwa.
The policy, Zimbabwe is Open for Business is bearing fruits and we are all seeing it. We have seen huge investment coming into the mining sector, multi-billion-dollar investments in platinum mining, lithium mining and we have seen investments in the manufacturing sector.
For instance, the Manhize Project, 1.5 billion dollars investment, all under the New Dispensation. This clearly shows our country is going somewhere under the leadership of President Mnangagwa. Zimbabwe clearly is attractive to investors, the policies and the drive of the Government is attracting that interest.
It is attracting the investment that is coming into our country and I believe that investment that comes into the country does not benefit a political party, it benefits every individual in our country.
It is important that we on this side of the House and those on the other side of the House, when it comes to things that have nothing to do with politics but to do with the livelihoods of the people in our country, we must speak the same language.
We must say the same things, we must not undermine but we must offer criticism on where things can be done better.
I believe the State of the Nation Address showed us the direction that the Government is taking and I applaud His Excellency on the direction that has been shown.
Nobody can criticise the fact that Zimbabwe is now the only other country outside of Ethiopia that is wheat sufficient on the African Continent – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – We are producing our own wheat and we do not need to import, if at all we need to import, it is because we need a certain taste to mix with our wheat, not because we need that wheat from the other countries and again that is the success of His Excellency, the President.
Our tobacco production has again grown phenomenally. Our maize, had it not been for the El Nino, again we have seen growth in that specific sector.
Let me talk briefly about tobacco Mr. Speaker Sir. Because we have been producing a lot of tobacco, it is bought at the auction floors at USD$2, USD$3, USD$4.50 a kg but that tobacco when value added, costs thousands of dollars per kg when it has become cigarettes.
I am congratulating the thrust of the Government to push for value addition in our tobacco industry, not just our tobacco industry but in many sectors including the mining industry.
The President has articulated on many occasions the policies on value addition and beneficiation. I believe that we should see our private sector and our financial institutions coming to rally behind the President’s policies.
The challenge I see Mr. Speaker Sir is, we wait for the President to announce or pronounce a policy. We also wait for the President to find the money to back the policy, we also wait for him to start implementing the policy and yet as a leader, he must just give direction and everybody must follow.
I believe with the policy pronunciations by the President and some of them articulated in the State of the Nation Address, we should see our financial institutions put together funds that are available for our indigenous Zimbabweans to go and borrow in order to import or buy machinery for value addition or beneficiation but if we do not do this, policies will not benefit us as Zimbabweans.
They will benefit, those who have access to the sources from outside the country. So, we will see those who will access money in China, South Africa, Pakistan, India et cetera, come and set up those
processing plants for our agricultural products. So, we should see, in my view, institutions supporting His Excellency’s policies by putting the resources to support.
I do not believe that if financial institutions in our country syndicated the funds for beneficiation and value addition and went to Government and say we want you to give the Government guarantee on this fund; the Government would say no.
There is no Government that will ever say no to supporting its own policies.
Our country is attractive to investors but we could be more attractive, if we had cheaper electricity. I have listened to other colleagues speak about the huge investment that is going into new energy; clean energy.
This is wonderful and we would like to congratulate the President for supporting this but I took note of the statement made by His Excellency in the State of the Nation Address (SONA).
He said, we must intentionally examine the use of alternative energy sources because this is important. He lamented the fact that the national power supplies remained subdued.
I know sometimes we get carried away by the global thrust and global drive towards new energy but the reality is that electricity – if we were organised in this country,
electricity must not cost what it costs today to Zimbabweans. We were given huge resources of coal by God. That coal is what drove the economic growth of Europe and this is our turn to use our resources to drive our own economic growth.
If you speak to Hon. Prof. Mthuli Ncube, he will tell you that the miners who are coming and investing in our country are appealing for cheaper electricity. They are paying 12 cents per kilowatt hour. They would prefer to pay six cents per kilowatt hour. If they pay six cents per kilowatt hour, they are able to be more profitable, employ more people, to open up new areas of mining.
We can reduce the price of our electricity to less than six cents per kilowatt hour if we utilise our huge coal resources towards generating our electricity.
We have, as developing countries, up to 2050 if we are following the United Nations Climate Change decision. We have until 2050 to phase out coal. So, in the meantime, I believe we should be pushing for a thrust towards investment in coal energy in order to build our country.
If we look at Europe today, the world’s biggest power house industrially is Germany. One of the biggest countries producing for the world is Germany and it is driving that economy with coal energy.
Germany relies on 54 gigawatts of their electricity coming from coal. Just for everybody to understand, 54 gigawatts is 54 000 megawatts of electricity. That is what Germany is producing from coal. We only produce about 2 000 megawatts of electricity in our country.
Germany is producing 54 000 megawatts from coal, which we are all rushing to phase out because we want to please the global agenda of a cleaner world. Let us build our economy first.
Let us generate electricity that is cheaper, which will allow more companies to invest in our country, our mines to grow; our agriculture to irrigate 24/7 and our people to cook with electricity at their homes.
I am encouraging us – I know as Parliament we are the ones who adopt these agreements but we must understand that we have an opportunity to grow our country quicker and faster if we promote coal energy because God has granted us those resources.
Before I sit, I would like to say that I am excited by His Excellency’s thrust towards the commercialisation of innovations around our universities. Now, because of the thrust that the Government has been tabbing, where there is a lot of innovation now coming in from our young inventors at universities.
The new thrust by the Government according to His Excellency in his SONA, is to make sure there is commercialisation of those technologies or that creativity that is coming from our universities.
I just would like to go further by saying; we need the Ministers responsible to then extent the President’s articulation by assuring that there are policies that force Government departments, parastatals and the private sector in our country to buy from those university students. That is how we can grow the economy.
Finally, His Excellency in the SONA, recognised and commended our Zimbabwe Defence Forces for their commitment to the defence of our sovereignty and territorial integrity. I always remind my friends and colleagues that you know the fact that we wake up at night; we sleep well; we are not opening our doors checking what is outside everyday because there are men and women who do not sleep to make sure that we have peace in our country.
We must always remember and recognise that. I have seen in other countries that the men and women in uniform always get special treatment when it comes to services. If you go to a bank, there is a shorter queue for the men and women in services.
If you go to the airport, there is a priority queue for our men and women in uniform who serve our country day and night.
Perhaps it is something we must do for our Zimbabwe Defence Forces and other men and women in uniform who serve our country loyally and diligently. I thank you.
