Online Reporter
Tendai Gukutikwa
Health Reporter
MINISTER of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Advocate Misheck Mugadza, this morning officially commissioned a LED Lighting Retrofit Project at Victoria Chitepo Provincial Hospital.
Minister Mugadza said the project will improve the quality of care offered at the institution.
“This retrofit project directly supports our goals of improving energy efficiency and reducing the national peak demand on our grid.
“His Excellency the President, Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, has set a clear mandate for Zimbabwe to become an upper-middle-income economy by 2030. Such an economy requires a healthy workforce and a clean economy,” he said.
The initiative, which was fully funded by the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA), allows the provincial referral hospital to transition to advanced LED technology.
As a result, the hospital will significantly reduce its energy consumption and operational costs, ensuring more resources can be directed towards critical patient care.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Dr Gloria Magombo commended the project, saying it is in line with Government efforts to reduce demand and free up electricity on the grid.
“This project is a direct and tangible implementation of our energy efficiency programme as a country. The Second Republic is all about implementation. Such projects reduce pressure on the grid, with the end game being that of having minimal or no load shedding at all in the country,” she said.
ZERA board chairperson, Dr Engineer Farai Mavhiya-Bhiza said Victoria Chitepo Provincial Hospital is the fifth hospital in the country to be retrofitted by the authority, after Mpilo, Harare Children’s, Chinhoyi and Gweru Provincial hospitals.
He said ZERA hopes to retrofit the remaining five provincial hospitals in the next five years.
