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George Maponga in MASVINGO

Electricity shortages, which manifest themselves in rolling power outages lasting about 18 hours a day, have claimed the scalp of a top iron firm here.

The sprawling SIMBI (Pvt) Limited plant, the first heavy industry in Zimbabwe’s oldest city, directly employed over 150 people and produced an average of 100 tonnes of sponge iron daily.

Besides direct employment, several downstream industries and surrounding areas benefited from the opening of the SIMBI plant, thereby stimulating the province’s economy. SIMBI, an acronym for Sponge Iron and Mining Beneficiation Industries, specialises in the production of sponge iron for both local and export markets.

It is situated in the Masvingo industrial area and sits on about 67 hectares.

The firm relied on feed stock transported from the Glenlivet Iron Ore Mine situated about 20 kilometres east of Masvingo, and low-sulphur coal moved from the company’s mine in Gudo communal lands in Chiredzi.

After an almost five year hiatus owing to an array of challenges that weighed down operations, SIMBI resumed operations in March this year amid high hopes that it would contributed significantly to economic turnaround.

After exactly 137 days of non-stop operations at the plant, yielding sponge iron stock in excess of 8 000 tonnes ready for the market, the firm closed again owing to crippling power cuts.

The company initially explored the use of diesel as an alternative source of power but the 2 000 litres required daily to run the generator made operational costs too high.

Further, the cost made the firm’s sponge iron expensive thereby non-competitive on the international market. But more importantly, that quantity of diesel required per day was difficult to come by due to general shortages on market. SIMBI, whose plant requires 6 000 units of power every day, succumbed to the challenges and ceased operations on August 5.

The plant has been under care and maintenance and has laid off half of its workforce while waiting agonisingly for solutions to be found. SIMBI general manager Mr Anand Rao said the firm remains committed to maintain and expand its investment in Masvingo.

“The major challenge which forced us to close is power and we have future plans to move to solar energy as an alternative source of power but if we can get guaranteed electricity supplies we will re-open because we have long-term plans to expand operations,” he said.

“We were running on diesel using at least 200 litres per day but shortages of the commodity on the market forced us to stop operations altogether and as a result, we cut our workforce by about 50 percent.”

Gumtree Mining company, which also used to employ nearly 100 workers at its Glenlivet Mine that supplied iron ore to SIMBI, has also halted operations because there is nowhere to sell the ore.

Said Mr Rao: “We had sub-contracted Gumtree Mining to extract iron ore for us but because we closed the SIMBI plant, they also had to cease operations.

“They also cut their workforce by between 50 to 60 percent while waiting for the situation to improve.”

Jobs were also lost at SIMBI’s coal mine in Chiredzi. Presently, SIMBI is relying on the remaining stock of 6 000 tonnes of sponge stocks to drip-feed both the local and foreign markets until a conducive environment for resumption of production is in place.

The closure of SIMBI has dampened expectations that Masvingo was on a growth trajectory, especially at this point when Government is pushing economic development from a different provinces, under the devolution thrust.

Masvingo acting town clerk Mr Edward Mukaratirwa had described the closure SIMBI as a devastating blow to the council from a revenue perspective.

Zesa spokesperson Mr Fullard Gwasira, while acknowledging the prevailing precarious power situation in the country, said the power utility prioritised the productive sector power distribution when power is available.