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Michael Magoronga, Business Correspondent
REDCLIFF-BASED steel manufacturing company, Steelmakers Zimbabwe has completed constructing a US$150 000 water treatment plant expected to go a long way in easing water challenges in the town.
The plant, which produces about 100 000 litres per day will service both the plant and the community.
Steelmakers Zimbabwe operations director Mr Upendra Alamwar said the treatment plant which draws water from a borehole is also part of the company’s efforts to find homegrown solutions to the company’s production challenge.
“The plant is part of our efforts to find our own solutions to the challenges we are faced with as a company.
“Instead of paying $25 000 to Kwekwe City for water every month, we can now redirect that money towards something else,” said Mr Alamwar.
He said the plant which draws water from a 50-metre-deep borehole, had been completed and awaits commissioning.
“Everything is up and running, though we are still making plans for the official commissioning.
“The plant is operating at 100 percent now,” said Mr Alamwar.
He said the borehole was also part of their Community Social Responsibility programme.
“We have a number of CSR programmes and this is one of them.
“Besides supplying the factory, residents are also finding the treatment plant useful as they are also benefiting from the water as you are aware Redcliff has no water and it relies on Kwekwe City for water so we are really glad to be playing a role in the community as well,” he said.
Besides supplying water, Mr Alamwar said the company has also been giving food hampers to its workers.
“We introduced the concept as a way of motivating our workers.
“We have been doing it for two months now and our hope is to continue doing so as long as we are able to do so.
“We give them food hampers that contain basic goods like mealie-meal, cooking oil, salt, matemba, bath and washing soaps among other goods,” he said.
“The company which has two other subsidiaries, Simbi and Oxy gas in Masvingo and Chiredzi respectively has about 700 workers.
Owing to raw material shortages, the company has been operating at 50 percent capacity, a move Mr Alamwar said will improve soon.
“By finding our own solutions it is very possible that we improve production.
“We are trying hard to find solutions to our raw materials and we remain confident that we will achieve that very soon,” he said.
Production at the steel plant dropped as suppliers of scrap metal choose to export their product to South African companies where they fetch more.
Although the company is exempted from load shedding, it receives less power than it requires to operate at full-throttle per day.
“We are very grateful to Zesa. Though we are exempted from load shedding, the situation with our power in the country has not been favourable.
“We have been receiving only half of the power we require and that also impacted negatively on our production,” he said.
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