Speaking during a Zanu-PF Youth League Convention held in Gweru, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said an American company, General Electric, has shown interest in investing in the 2 400MW Batoka Gorge Hydroelectric Power project between Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Mnangagwa said the company is interested in investing in Zimbabwe despite the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, known as ZIDERA which prohibits American companies from doing business with Zimbabwe. He said that General Electric can invest in Zimbabwe because Donald Trump’s administration “is giving them the blind eye”. Said Mnangagwa:
As the industries are recovering, as electricity is being produced we believe that in the next five years according to our programme we will have over 2 000MW of electricity that will come on the national grid. We have Batoka alone, Batoka Gorge, I must say this to you, Americans have Zidera sanctions but we now have a big American company that has come in to do Batoka Gorge at $5, 2 billion. We asked them how they are going to do it when there is Zidera and they said the (Donald) Trump administration is giving them a blind eye. So things are changing. So we have written a letter to our Zambian counterparts because for it to go ahead it needs Zambia to agree.
VOA could not reach U.S. embassy officials in Harare to confirm if indeed Trump’s administration was now overlooking ZIDERA.