Mugabe does it again
2007-11-16 07:36
Special Report
Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai has called for openness in the country’s nascent diamond trade, getting underway after the lifting of a global ban over rights abuses.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare -
Zimbabwe has launched its first ever commercial bio-diesel plant amid high hopes the project could ease diesel shortages, reduce the country's imports bill or eventually lift the troubled nation's economy out of recession.
According to state daily, The Herald, the new plant will save the foreign currency squeezed government US$80m annually in diesel imports.
The bio-diesel plant, according to the paper, has the capacity to produce 100 million litres of diesel annually if fully operational according to the government mouthpiece.
The plant, which processes jatropha, cotton seed, sunflower and soya, among others, to produce bio-diesel, is a joint venture between the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and Youn Woo Investments of South Korea.
World first
Zimbabwe also scored big by being the the first country in the world to produce bio-diesel with a bio-purity level of virtually 100%.
Germany has a bio-purity level of 75% while other European countries range from 2% to 20%.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who officiated the plant heaped praises on the central bank and commended the two partners for coming up with such a genius innovation.
The achievement, Mugabe claimed was a "derivative of government's far-sighted land reform programme."
Zimbabwe, according to the Herald "would now be cushioned against exogenous threats relating to fuel supplies, particularly in terms of pricing and availability when the plant is at full capacity".
'Meeting all diesel requirements'
Mugabe said: "The strategic importance of this bio-diesel programme is its symbiotic integration with Government's thrust in agricultural productive activity.
"I am informed that once wholly customised, this plant will, at full capacity, yield a production level of 100 million litres of diesel per year, meeting virtually all the agricultural sector's diesel requirements for our strategic crops and other farming activities."
"As a people, we have demonstrated that the dark clouds of our hard times, particularly those sown by Western destructive forces, have their silver lining by way of not just strengthening our resilience, but also of deepening our scientific research and stimulating our innovativeness," he said.
Zimbabwe is also planing to install similar plants in all provinces of the country within the next three years to meet the country's agricultural and industrial productive sector fuel demands.
Land acquistion exercise
Mugabe also called on resettled farmers to produce enough oil seeds to meet both consumptive and fuel production needs. At least 500 tonnes of seed oil would be required annually to produce the targeted 100 million litres of bio-diesel.
"Within this context, therefore, it is once more necessary to challenge all beneficiaries of the land acquisition exercise to ensure that every inch of allocated land is put to good use," said Mugabe.
Government hopes the 2007/2008 agricultural season will be the turning point in the country's economic fortunes, with agricultural production providing the lead in the transformation process.
But critics say turning around the economy will not be al that easy suggested by Mugabe.
At the same event, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe chief Gideon Gono announced a Z$1trillion finance facility for each province for the production of jatropha, the major oil seed for the bio-diesel processing technology.
He said the facility was meant to stimulate the growth and propagation of jatropha as feeder stock for bio-diesel projects in each province.
Two year plan
The launch of the bio-diesel plant is part of a two-year strategy towards energy production, self-sufficiency and import substitution.
Jatropha had the highest oil content ahead of other vegetable oil seeds. More farmers have been growing Jatropha after government mooted the idea three years ago.
The jatropha facility would augment efforts to encourage production of the crop, which has a 35% oil content, much higher than other seeds that average 17%.
It took two to three years before jatropha seeds could be harvested and, in the meantime, Zimbabwe is said to have excess capacity in terms of pressing other oil seeds such as sunflower, cotton seed and soya.
Zimbabwe needs a least a billion litres of diesel annually.
"Your Excellency, the declared and undeclared sanctions against us as a country as well as the hardships our people are experiencing, coupled with the continued rise in the price of oil internationally, demands that we reconfigure our lives and our economy in a manner that eases the plight of our people and reduce dependency on those externalities and exogenous factors which we cannot influence in our favour," said Gono.
Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world now close to 8 000%, but economic experts say the figure will come out higher this month.
- Fin24
- Finance24