Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s government will this week meet Russian energy officials in Harare to discuss investment in the power sector by the East European country, barely a month after concluding a $1,3-billion electricity-generation deal with China.
Authoritative sources told independent news provider ZimOnline that officials from Russia’s TurboEngineering firm were expected to arrive in Harare on Monday night and would remain in the country until July 22. During their stay, the Russians are scheduled to hold talks with officials from the ministries of energy, finance and foreign affairs.
The East Europeans, who are said to be keen to invest in the development of Condo hydro-electricity plant, Gairezi power plant and the Batoka Hydro-project on the Zambezi River, will also meet officials from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
In a letter to the state-owned Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) dated June 30 2006, TurboEngineering MD Alexey Semenkov said Russian and international banks — which he did not disclose in the letter — had agreed in principle to finance Zimbabwean power projects.
“Since the date of your information receipt we held some preliminary discussion with Russian and international banks regarding the possibility of the projects’ finance in Zimbabwe and had their principal agreement to continue the discussions on this subject,” reads Semenkov’s letter, a copy of which was shown to ZimOnline.
The three projects — estimated to cost hundreds of millions of United States dollars to develop — would yield close to 1Â 000 megawatts once in full production and would see an end to Zimbabwe’s crippling power shortages.
Zimbabwean industry and homes suffer from hours of power cuts every day, with Zesa officials at the weekend warning that the power shortages would worsen in coming days after a breakdown at the country’s main hydro-power plant at Kariba dam.
Energy experts say Zimbabwe looks set to be the worst affected by a power crisis expected to hit Southern Africa by 2008 because of failure by the cash-strapped Zesa to expand generation capacity at existing power stations or build new ones.
Southern Africa is expected to face an acute energy deficit in about two years’ time that will see neighbouring countries that have provided 35% of Zimbabwe’s power requirements unable to do so because of rising demand in their domestic markets.
But the power shortage is only a symptom of a wider economic crisis that has spawned shortages of food, fuel, essential medicines and foreign currency, while inflation has shot beyond 1Â 000%.
Mugabe, shunned by the West since 2002 over accusations of repression and human rights violations, has turned to China and Russia in search of help to resuscitate Zimbabwe’s comatose economy.
For example, in the power deal signed with China, Beijing will help build new coal mines and three thermal power stations in the Zambezi valley along the border with Zambia. In exchange, Zimbabwe will provide China with chrome.
Chinese companies are also to rebuild Zimbabwe’s rail network, supply trains, buses and farm equipment under several other economic cooperation deals between the two countries. — ZimOnline