adminMichael Magoronga Midlands Correspondent
Government will provide the necessary support needed to ensure the country’s sole Ammonium Nitrate (AN) fertiliser manufacturing company, Sable Chemicals, has enough inputs to make fertiliser for the current cropping season, Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs Mr Owen Ncube has said.
Addressing delegates during a familiarisation tour of the company recently, Minister Ncube said Government was committed to supporting strategic companies that helped improve food security in the country. “As an agro-based economy, Zimbabwe needs sufficient fertiliser and chemicals in order to support the land reform programme,” he said.
“Our visit is meant to have an appreciation of the situation here. Our aim is to give the much-needed support to such companies as Sable Chemicals so that it can produce to its maximum production capacity.”
Sable Chemicals chief executive, Mr Bothwell Nyajeka, said the firm was operating at 50 percent capacity.
“So far we have one division that is operating and the other one has been closed as it consumed more energy,” he said. “We switched off our electrolysis plant and we are importing ammonia from South Africa that we feed into the manufacturing plant.
“The plant’s energy capacity is too much and costly and it’s cheaper to import at the moment.”
Mr Nyajeka said Sable Chemicals received a substantial amount of foreign currency from Treasury for the importation of AN. He said the company was being overwhelmed and needed more forex to import inputs.
Mr Nyajeka said if the supply of forex improved, the company could produce 90 000 tonnes of AN in 2018 and raise the production to 240 000 tonnes in 2019.
Online Reporter