Rutendo Chirume
Gutu Rural District Council (RDC) is yet to get the proper land ownership documents for the resumption of construction of a five megawatt (5MW) solar plant in the Chatsworth area of Gutu district Ward 32, EnviroPress can report.
The project, which was mooted seven years ago, is supposed to be funded by the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ).
The project was halted in its elementary phase last year after the investor requested for title deeds before continuing the works.
EnviroPress understands that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in 2018, and the land provided to Gutu Rural District Council (GRDC) by the Ministry of Lands through a 25-year lease approved on October 06, 2023, was then secured.
The land, which is zoned as resettlement area, will host a solar power plant which would feed into the national electricity grid. The whole of Gutu district consumes an average of 3MW per day.
In an interview Gutu RDC CEO Alexander Mtembwa told EnviroPress that their local authority faced challenges obtaining the documents from the Deeds Office due to the government’s previous directive banning the issuing of title deeds.
“Except from clearing the five hectares of land and making roads last year, the project has been halted. The investor made strict instructions that the only way to continue would be to first get the tittle deeds, but we have not been able to do that.
“At one time, there was a government directive halting the issuance of title deeds, and that affected progress. However, we have resumed talks with the responsible authority and in two weeks I might be able to have a better standing on the way forward,” said Mtembwa.
When contacted for comment Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Professor Obert Jiri advised that Gutu RDC to urgently engage the ministry on the issue.
“They can quickly get hold of my office to expedite the process of land title. Otherwise the project should be going on smoothly,” said Prof Jiri.
Initially, a German clean energy firm known as HIVE Energy Ltd was to fund the project to the tune of US$26 million to generate 20MW of electricity.
Gutu RDC and HIVE Energy Ltd, it was announced, would form Gutu Power Company (GPC) and sell their electricity to ZESA, but the German company withdrew in 2020 after the world got into the Covid-19 induced lockdown which severely curtailed global travel and business.
The proposed project was then drastically scaled down to 5MW after assessments proved that ZESA would not have capacity to safely channel the 20 megawatts of electricity into the national grid using the power infrastructure available in the area.
