After the poor representation by Zimbabwe heading into the Africa-European Union Energy Partnership (AEEP) meeting in Vienna, it is hard to imagine how the southern African country plans to lure investors for its energy sector with its lack of participation with an opportunistic events like AEEP.
The country sent a junior diplomat while neighboring countries like South Africa, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo, Senegal, and Morocco sent their energy ministers. Kenya pushed for an insurance plan to help shore up investment, and the EU subsequently announced it would provide 100 million Africans with clean and sustainable energy by 2020.
Zimbabwe is facing many problems in its energy sector and had previously made an announcement that it was attempting to procure investments in IPP and PPP projects. The country’s energy sector produces a daily average of 1,100 MW of electricity with around 1,000 MW met via imports from neighboring countries to meet its demand of 2,100 MW. While it is reported that other countries that participated in the AEEP meeting struck deals with foreign investors, how did Zimbabwe overlook this opportunity?
One reason for Zimbabwe’s lack of participation could be a result of the ambiguity of its energy sector overall. In June the country’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai dismissed four of his party’s 15 cabinet ministers after failing a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) performance review for the last 16 months.
The cabinet members released included the Energy Minister Elias Mudzuri, Housing Minister Fidelis Mhashu, and two other deputy ministers. Mudzuri was sacked after a national blackout during the World Cup that also caused problems in Zambia. A week prior to the blackout, Mudzuri had announced that the country’s scheduled power outages, known as load shedding, would cease from June 11 to July 11 during the World Cup. And as the World Cup got underway with the opening match between the host country South Africa playing Mexico, many parts of Zimbabwe went black. Tsvangirai appointed the Minister for Economic Planning, Elton Mangoma, in the energy post position.
"The pace of reform has been painfully slow; abuses of power are still all too common; many people are still struggling to make a living wage and provide for their families," Tsvansgirai said. "I am acutely aware that these and other challenges have led to the loss of confidence in the new administration amongst the electorate."
Zimbabwe is going to have a hard time increasing investor appetite when it appears to have no clear direction outlining plans to make its energy sector more sustainable and reliable.
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