Online Reporter
OUR country is firmly on the road to greater, home-grown industrialisation thanks to the President Mnangagwa’s directive.
He, a few years ago, ordered Government departments, institutions of higher and tertiary education and the local business sector to go about creating tangibles, producing market-ready goods and services instead of just theorising.
Now, we are seeing multiple innovations across the board, a good number of which are advancing to commercial stage. This is evidence of a country on a confident forward march.
One of the biggest news of the week was an announcement by Verify Engineering, a 100 percent Government-owned firm, that it has completed a 12-month testing of lithium-ion batteries it made.
“I am sure you remember we won the overall 2024 Presidential Innovation award on the production of the lithium-ion battery and we are happy that the product went for some tests lasting the whole year and we can confirm that only last month we recorded zero failure rate on the product,” we cited Verify Engineering chief executive officer, Engineer Pedzisai Tapfumaneyi as saying on these pages yesterday.
“What that means is that the product is functioning well and under normal circumstances it has a 10-year life span. We are now focusing on commercialising the product. Commercialising the product (lithium-ion battery) would need about $28 million for the establishment of a giant manufacturing plant. This initial phase of research of the product cost almost $500 000.”
This is the same company that is producing medical oxygen and exporting it, a huge leap we traditionally associated with foreign-owned, white-owned companies.
Our country is the continent’s biggest producer of lithium. Instead of us being happy as Africa’s number one lithium miner, the Government in 2022 banned exportation of unprocessed lithium, permitting product that has been value-added to concentrate stage.
From 2027, a ban on exportation of lithium concentrate will come into force. Then miners would be bound to advance domestic value addition to lithium sulphate stage and better.
The Government’s goal is to ensure that the country moves up and up the lithium value chain to a level where we manufacture lithium-ion batteries whose demand is rising exponentially as the globe transitions to greater cleaner energy usage. Lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable and used to power electric vehicles, solar systems, cellphones and so on.
The metal is, in addition to being used in the renewable energy sector, used pharmaceuticals, manufacture of lubricants and rocket propellants.
We are proud of what Verify Engineering is doing, getting the country to localise more lithium value.
We urge the Government to continue supporting the firm by providing the $28 million it needs to set up the lithium-ion battery factory.
Bongani Ndlovu