Over 900 solar milling plants installed

By BUSINESS REPORTER

OV ER 25 solar milling plants under the presidential initiative which started in 2015 have been commissioned countrywide, the ambia Cooperative ederation (Z CF ) has said.

The Presidential initiative is targeting to install and commission 2000 plants countrywide.

The 925 plants have been installed in Northern, Luapula, Muchinga, Eastern, Lusaka, Southern, North Western, Copperbelt and Central Provinces.

According to ZCF director operations and projects, Derrick Sokoni, all the 2000 plants would be installed in targeted areas by end of this year.

Mr. Sokoni explained that the project had stalled due to some challenges in accessing funds from China Development Bank which was responsible for disbursing the resources.

“The process was caught up with those elections, and there was a period when the ministers were supposed to leave office and that period so any approval that was done by those ministers were discounted after the court ruling.

“That affected our process with &hina Development Bank which is disbursing funds through this project. We are targeting to conclude the project by the end of this year to install all the mills,” Mr Sokoni said.

Meanwhile, Mr Sokoni in an interview said ZCF was currently procuring quipment needed to construct two conversional and parallel solar milling plants in Mbala and Luanshya.

Mr Sokoni said ZCF had secured a loan worth over US$9.4 million from the Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ) to construct the two plants.

“For the two conventional mills, the current phase is that we are on the procurement level and soil testing has already been done. These will be producing 200 tonnes of mealie meal per 24 hours each, this means that the capacity for both plants is 400 tonnes,” he said.