Mega electricity production project hamstrung by covid19
Thembelihle Mhlanga
HWANGE – A mega electricity production capital project worth USD1.4 billion is now eight and half months behind schedule after covid19 induced lockdowns led to brain drain and some investment constraints.
Speaking at a ministerial familiarization tour of the Hwange Electricity Supply Company (HESCO) project in Hwange, the Project Manager Engineer Forbes Chanakira said that the project is way behind time and that scores of employees have since left for greener pastures when operations ground to a halt at the height of lockdowns necessitated by the pandemic.
“All things being normal, we are supposed to be at ninety eight percent completion but the Covid 19 pandemic forced us to dock a number of our operations. The regulations restricted numbers of human capital per area and all non-essential activities were instructed to close operations and this had a major negative impact on our overal operations.
In addition to the covid19 set back, we suffered a skills flight blow, whereby our skilled human resources left the company for greener pastures and this will see us delay the completion of the project by two hundred and fifty eight days,” said Engineer Chanakira.
Engineer Chanakira further attributed the delay of the completion of this project to the prevailing national liquidity crunch and the project credit lines that needed repayments and servicing of loans from a Chinese Bank
Once completed, the Unit 7 and 8 Expansion project will be connected to the national grid, supplying Sherwood 1, Sherwood 2 and Insukamini substations, thereby increasing the national power output from 320 megawatts to 600 megawatts.
The HESCO expansion project was launched by the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe ED Mnangagwa on the 27th of June 2018 and resumed operations on August 1 2018. Provincial Minister for Matabeleland North in charge of devolution Cde Richard Moyo led the touring team.
