Chifamba lands Zesa top job

Herald Business understands that he has pipped Engineer Cletus Nyachowe to the post and is reported to be heading for Harare from Lesotho where he was the managing director of Lesotho Electricity Company.
A source close to the developments confirmed yesterday that Eng Chifamba would assume his new role at the beginning of next month.

Efforts to get comment from Zesa on the latest development proved fruitless at the time of going to press.
Eng Chifamba, who majored in electrical engineering, would require all stakeholder support given the myriad of challenges faced by the power utility, takes from Engineer Ben Rafemoyo, who stepped down last year.

Zesa, which posted a US$108 million loss for the full year to December 2009, is owed over US$400 million and in turn owes regional utilities over US$100 million.
The power utility has thus been battling to raise sufficient capital to make necessary repairs and replace outdated plant and equipment, which have affected power generation.
Zesa is producing about 1 200MW against national demand of 1 850MW which has resulted in the load-shedding across the country.

This has largely affected industry and efforts to turn around the economy as most companies have had to cut short their operating hours while the intermittent power cuts have also affected plant and machinery, some of which need constant power supplies.

Most companies have had to resort to generators for alternative power but this has proved costly while on the domestic front, consumers have been complaining about high monthly bills des-pite going for hours and sometimes days without electricity.

However, electricity output is expected to rise to 1 650MW this year due to anticipated rehabilitation work.
A number of companies from countries such as China and India have already expressed interest in investing in the local power sector although tangible deals are yet to be concluded.-The Herald

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