“WE ARE USING NAIROBI AS A BASE TO SERVE THE EAST AFRICAN MARKETS; TRYING TO PROVIDE A GOOD QUALITY SERVICE WE SEE AS PARTLY LACKING THERE. FUNDAMENTALLY THE MARKET IS VERY POSITIVE – IT LOOKS GOOD FOR MEDIUM TO LONG TERM”

Alongside its turnkey offering, Masureik believes that another reason for the company’s success is its strong relationships with suppliers.

“We are essentially an EPC – an engineering, procurement and construction company – so once we design a system, we need to procure it. We don’t hold any stock; we rely on our key suppliers to hold stock on hand and to supply stock for projects when we need it at a competitive rate,” he explains.

Because of this, suppliers are of paramount importance, and New Southern Energy is always looking for further ways to involve them in projects and solution-finding exercises.

However, COVID-19 inevitably created delays and shortages within the company’s supply chain. Masureik explains that these difficulties have started to ease off since June, with various national lockdowns becoming less stringent.

“The biggest challenge we have at the moment is with the solar panels themselves; we have supply issues coming out of China, not only from COVID but also from manufacturing issues – there have been some fires and disasters in their supply chain, which has affected global supply,” he says.