South Africa Gets R33m Loan From China In Order To Supply Zim With Electricity
1 October 2018
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Staff Reporter|South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has indicated that his country has gone out of its way to get a R33 million loan from China in order to be able to continue supplying electricity to Zimbabwe.

After an hour and a half of answering questions in parliament,Ramaphosa assured the house that his ruling African National Congress will not have any corrupt activity on the loans sort to increase power production for the region.

Ramaphosa said it would go towards developing the new Kusile power plant and increasing the capacity of South Africa’s electricity grid. This would allow the country to keep supplying nearby countries with electricity.

“Zimbabwe continues to import electricity from us,” Ramaphosa said.

Eskom’s media department told media in that country that it had a “firm power supply agreement” with Zimbabwe under which the country got 50 megawatts (MW) of electricity a day. Zimbabwe could also ask for more than that, as long as the electricity was available and the request made a day before.

This arrangement started on 1 April 2017 and will run to 31 March 2022. In Eskom’s 2017/18 financial year, exports to Zimbabwe added up to 2,250 gigawatt hours (GWh).

The deal runs from 2017 to 2022. But if Eskom has difficulty in getting all the coal it needs for its power plants, it may struggle to generate enough electricity. This could cause problems in the arrangement with Zimbabwe.