ZIMBABWE has made strides in the production of electricity transformers, with state entity ZESA Enterprises (ZENT) ramping up production of the critical component in electricity distribution, thereby saving the country millions of dollars in imports.
A visit to ZENT by the ZBC News shows workers out in full force as they work on their targets.
From producing just about 600 transformers a year, production has since shot to between 2500 to 3000 transformers a year.
The men and women have targets to meet. Their work is clear-cut. At their different stations, each one of them is contributing to the process of manufacturing transformers.
For Zimbabwe’s economy to thrive, power is a key enabler and the transformers are critical and ZESA enterprises has the mandate in the country to produce those transformers
The workers, drawn from various local educational institutions, are highly skilled.
They are also very clear on the important task they have in producing these transformers.
“We are given the raw materials, and we start our process. Once we do that, we take it through different processes. We produce about 250 000 tanks a month and move them to the next phase.
We want Vision 2030 to succeed, we want every rural household to have power by 2030,” ZENT mechanical engineer, Fiyina Rushambwa said.
“We are grateful to God that there is a lot of work, that means more people are being employed.
Our production is high, more people are working and also, we should have more transformers,” welder, Gibson Chitate noted.
The management has a huge task on their shoulders to further increase current production. But so far, within the last four years, they have increased the number of transformers being manufactured, as explained by ZENT Managing Director, Dr Godfrey Mugaviri.
“We do not just manufacture, but we design and manufacture. We have the ability and capacity to manufacture right from scratch. The President was here around 2021. We have increased production. Around 2021, we would produce about 600 transformers a year, but we now realize that progressively from that to where we are now, we have been able to increase gradually, and we aspire to manufacture over 3 000 transformers this year. In order to achieve that, we need a sufficient supply of raw materials. We employ more people now, but if we retool, it would increase efficiency. We have the skills, we have young people who came from universities, colleges.”
While some imports are also available on the market, ZENT says the locally produced transformers have a 25-year warranty and of a higher quality.
“I can affirmatively say that the transformers can be guaranteed to 25 years. The total cost of procurement is better than cheap imports, which pack up after about 6 months,” Dr Mugaviri stated.
While production is being ramped up, the issue of vandalism continues to be a cause for concern nationwide.
While appealing to the public to assist in safeguarding the transformers, ZENT has also put in place measures to use aluminum to replace copper in some of its productions, as this is the target for thieves.
“We are now manufacturing some of our transformers using aluminum instead of copper, as thieves have an appetite for this copper,” Dr Mugaviri said.
President Mnangagwa’s government continues to advocate for local production of key industry components, with the production of transformers showcasing the local skills set.
