KEY POINTS
- Zimbabwe’s Zesa CEO has pledged to end load shedding completely by December 2026.
- Zesa has maintained 138 consecutive days without load shedding, backed by Afreximbank funding.
- Zesa targets full national electrification by 2030 and an end to power imports by 2027.
Zimbabwe’s state power utility is making a bold promise. Load shedding will be over by December 2026. That is the commitment Zesa Group CEO Cletus Nyachowe put on the record this weekend, giving oral evidence to the Public Accounts Portfolio Committee in Hwange.
The committee is on a fact-finding mission covering Mutapa Investment Fund entities that have not been generating dividends. Nyachowe used the platform to lay out what Zesa has been doing and where it is headed.
“We are looking at ending load shedding by the end of this year,” he told the committee. “We are intensely focused on effective utilisation of the resources that we have, and on playing on the market.”
He described a shift from passive to active energy trading. Zesa now runs a team around the clock doing load forecasts, monitoring available energy on the Southern African Power Pool market and placing bids in real time.
“It is like an auction,” Nyachowe said. “So far it is working well.”
138 days without load shedding
The claim has numbers behind it. Zesa says it has maintained uninterrupted power for 138 consecutive days, a milestone it attributes to the rebuilding and restructuring of the Zimbabwe Power Company and a $210 million loan facility from Afreximbank. A portion of that facility has been dedicated specifically to power trading on the Southern African Power Pool.
Mutapa Investment Fund Deputy Chief Operating Officer Enerst Dendere said the era of treating ZPC as a state-subsidised entity is over. “We are transforming it into a high-performance, commercially viable asset that services its debt obligations,” he said.
The targets beyond 2026
Nyachowe outlined a longer runway. Zesa is targeting the electrification of one million families, including 500,000 homes already built in urban areas but not yet connected to the grid. Total electrification of the country is set for 2030. Power imports are targeted to end by 2027.
“By 2030, we should achieve total electrification of the country,” Nyachowe said.
The 138-day run without load shedding is the strongest evidence yet that the utility is moving in the right direction. Whether it holds through December is the question Zimbabwe’s households and businesses are watching most closely.
