. . . Residents reject continued Zesa ownership

ZPC, residents clash over power station

BULAWAYO residents have rejected electricity repowering plans by the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) that would see the Bulawayo Power Station’s ownership continuing to be under Zesa for the next 20 years.

Last month the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) announced in a public notice that it had received an application from ZPC for amendment of the electricity generation licence to be extended by 20 years from 2024.

“Notice is hereby given . . . that the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) received an application from the Zimbabwe Power Company for amendment of electricity generation licence GC0023 for the Bulawayo Power Station for generation and supply of electricity in Zimbabwe.

‘The application would entail the extension of the tenure of the generation licence issued to Zimbabwe Power Company for the Bulawayo Power Station by 20 years from 2024.

“The amendment is also necessitated by the need to upgrade the capacity of the power station to 120 megawatts once the repowering programme has been completed,” reads the public notice.

However, Bulawayo residents have come out guns blazing saying not only did the power utility fail to consult the Bulawayo City Council and residents who are the key stakeholders in the running of the power station but the whole deal undermined the spirit of devolution.

In a statement Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association co-ordinator, Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu said the ramifications may be far reaching if left unchecked as there have been no consultations with either council or residents in the applicants’ quest to seek both geographical and time extensions.

“The station was confined to supplying electricity to Bulawayo only but the amendment of the licence will result in the nationalisation of the electricity generated from the Bulawayo Power Station. This raises a red flag to the residents whether there will be enough electricity for them and country wide. Bulawayo City Council stands a chance of not gaining anything from this move as already it is being owed over $110 million by Zesa. In such regard, there has been a question of cost benefit analysis which as far as council and residents are concerned has not been taken into consideration,” said Mr Ndlovu.

He noted that the power utility already owed the local authority millions in royalties for the power station, which the power utility was as good as refusing to pay off hence nationalising the project without necessary consultations was premature.

“Bulawayo City Council is fiscally distressed and in desperate need of revenue to provide services to its residents and manage its runaway wage-bill. The move to nationalise the Bulawayo Power Station will afford ZPC a chance to escape from accounting in respect of royalties accruing to Bulawayo which should contribute to the development of the city. Residents and the city council may not even keep track of all the transactions relating to the Bulawayo Power Station.

Recently, ZPC announced that it was reviewing a draft contract received from India Export and Import Bank for the $87 million Bulawayo Thermal Power Station repowering project.

The ZPC/ India-Exim Bank deal was clinched in 2015 and the financial institution last month announced having extended an additional $23 million line of credit for rehabilitation of Bulawayo Thermal Power Station. The thermal plant’s refurbishment process includes, among other activities, replacing old boilers with state-of- the-art boilers.

The power plant, which was built 60 years ago, has been failing to meet its installed generation capacity of 120MW due to ageing equipment, among other reasons. Vusumuzi Dube Senior Reporter