State Media|President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday met his Mozambican counterpart President Filipe Nyusi and apprised him of the country’s food security situation, including electricity shortages, with a view of accessing power from Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric plant (HCB), which is generating excess power.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 12th edition of the US-Africa Business Summit currently in progress in Maputo Mozambique.
Speaking after a two-hour meeting with President Nyusi, President Mnangagwa said the two sister Republics were “Siamese twins” and, therefore, “there is nothing out of bounds” for the two countries to discuss issues.
“We discuss anything that we think is necessary to share; on my part, I was briefing His Excellency the President about the current food insecurity in Zimbabwe as a result of the drought that has visited us and also the fact (that) our energy sector – electricity – has gone down primarily as a result of that drought,” he said.
“But because it is now as low as 33 percent, we have reduced generation of power by almost 50 percent; that also affects Zambia. So, I was appealing to my brother that Cahora Bassa (Dam) is around 96 percent full, so the generation there has not been affected. We felt that perhaps we look at it and see whether Zimbabwe can access that energy from Cahora Bassa.”
The two Presidents also discussed ways of mitigating the consequences of Cyclone Idai, which claimed more than 1 000 lives in the region and damaged property worth billions of dollars.
Relatedly, Harare and Maputo also intend to deepen economic cooperation in infrastructure development to modernise the two economies.
President Mnangagwa said he found “common ground” to consolidate relations between the two countries.
“Beyond that, we talked about how we can upgrade our economic cooperation between Zimbabwe and Mozambique; in particular, in relation to infrastructure development; that is, both road, rail and the transportation of fuel – the pipeline,” he said .
“And in all those areas we found common ground to consolidate our relations with a view of modernising and growing the two respective economies.”
The new political administration intends to transform the country from being landlocked to land-linked, and Mozambique provides a convenient route to the sea.
Zimbabwe is also angling to get positive spin-offs from the US$20 billion gas project that will soon be implemented by Mozambique and US company Anadarko Petroleum.
“We are looking forward to the consummation of the current project in northern Mozambique; the gas project, which will usher in benefits to Mozambique as well as to Zimbabwe because there will be by-products coming out of that project,” said President Mnangagwa.