adminLeonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
A COMPANY which once pledged about $600 million towards the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (MZWP) more than a decade ago says it is still keen to invest in the project to solve the country’s water challenges. The company, Zimbabwe-Malaysia (ZimMal) Holdings Private Limited – a joint venture between Malaysians and locals -had its initial plans to invest in the water project scuttled by hyperinflation. ZimMal Holdings Private Limited’s president, Hassan Ali, who is leading a group of 32 Malaysians on a week-long tour of local tourist attractions as a way of marketing Zimbabwe, told The Chronicle in Victoria Falls that the money for the MZWP was still available.
In 2001, Ali witnessed the signing of an agreement between President Robert Mugabe and his Malaysian Mahathir Mohamad for the funding of the MZWP and between 1997 and 2000 his company built 5,000 low cost houses in Cowdray Park suburb in Bulawayo. Ali said the $600 million they sourced for the water project could be doubled with co-operation from the government.
“The loan was $600 million and it still exists. It can be doubled now because water is the best contribution to mankind. We can avail money and all we need is the government’s cooperation,” said Ali. He said the economic situation in the country at the turn of the millennium affected their projects as funding partners advised them to delay investing.
“We first came in 1995 when we were invited by Dr Joshua Nkomo (the late VP) who said Bulawayo needed infrastructural projects. “The Ministry of Water at the time requested that we partner it in the MZWP and I travelled worldwide mobilising funding,” Ali said. “We raised $600 million but that loan was in United States dollars yet when complete the project would have been sold to people in local Zimbabwean currency which was unstable then.
“Accessing the foreign loan was limited then and all we need now is close cooperation with the government.” He expressed interest in coal mining saying Zimbabwe has potential to develop as it was endowed with natural resources that can be extracted to fund other capital projects.
Ali said he was also interested in constructing more houses. “As for Cowdray Park I’m still willing to do more houses. We did about 5,000 houses in four years and we can continue from where we left, there’s no problem about that,” he said.
ZimMal’s interest to invest in the country comes at a time when Russian firms Gazprom and Alrosa have expressed interest in coal gas methane extraction in Lupane as well as diamond mining. The Dangote Group, a company owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is also investing in the country.
Online Reporter