adminwanted a licence to generate 600 megawatts.
Mr Malunga said this while giving oral evidence before a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy.
The committee chaired by Guruve South MP, Cde Edward Chindori-Chininga (Zanu-PF), wanted the authority to update it on its operations.
“We have received two applications with a potential of 1 000MW. One is from Essar and another one is from China Africa Sunlight,” he said.
“We are evaluating them and our aim is not to frustrate any investor, we try to proffer guidance.”
Essar together with the Government of Zimbabwe established New Zimsteel to revive Ziscosteel, in Kwekwe.
In yesterday’s hearing, the committee expressed concern at the failure by many independent power producers to roll out their projects despite having been licensed.
The committee questioned what Zera was doing to deal with firms that got licences but failed to take off several years after securing a licence.
Cde Chindori-Chininga said the failure to have their projects take off, left an untenable situation where Zesa continue to enjoy a monopoly whose effect has been poor service delivery.
“We can’t continue to have these good and glowing projects but on the ground there is nothing. What are you doing with these projects, don’t they have a timeframe and when are you going to cancel their licences,” asked Cde Chindori-Chininga.
Mr Malunga said they were equally worried by the firms’ failure to roll out their power projects and the resultant effect on Zesa’s service delivery.
He said Zesa argued that the huge debt overhang it was saddled with hampered service delivery.
Zesa, said Mr Malunga, was owed more than US$500 million of which US$18 million was owed by Government ministries and departments.
Cde Chindori-Chininga asked the prudence by Zesa Holdings to rush to disconnect power supply to farmers and individuals leaving out Government ministries.
It was felt that Zesa Holdings was not doing enough to collect money it is owed. The power utility also came under fire for taking long to roll out pre-paid meters, which was viewed as a panacea to its “unimpressive” revenue collection.
“It’s now a long time since Zesa talked of pre-paid meters, tavakutochembera but up to now nothing has come,” said Cde Chindori-Chininga.
The committee also felt Zesa Holdings appeared to have an appetite to hike tariffs, an observation Mr Malunga agreed with.
“We have received an application for tariff increases from Zesa for ring fenced customers, those customers with a bilateral agreement to have uninterrupted supply,” said Mr Malunga.
“We are going into an extensive consultation because our understanding was that the September tariff increase had captured everything.”
On generators, Mr Malunga said Zera will need to make an audit of those people owning the gadgets, particularly those that have more than 100kv.
The committee also rapped Zesa Holdings for wanting to charge consumers power consumed during the Zimbabwe dollar era.
Warren Park MP, Mr Elias Mudzuri, said Government had taken a position that the power utility should charge consumers in United States dollar unit with effect from February 2009.
“I was the Minister of Energy (and Power Development) then and there is need for policy consistence by the Government because that was agreed in Cabinet,” he said.
Online Reporter