Zimbabwe has paid the US$33 million debt it owed to South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., Energy and Power Development Minister Fortune Chasi has said.
Posting on Twitter on Monday, Chasi said ZESA Holdings, the country’s power utility can now negotiate with Eskom for additional electricity supplies. He wrote:
Hard to believe but ESCOM has, in fact now been paid off. Eskom was paid the last US$890,000.00 for imports during this week. This means Zesa can now negotiate for additional supplies if available. Attention now turns to HCB (Mozambique).
Zimbabwe owed tens of millions of dollars to its two neighbours, South Africa and Mozambique for power supplied over the past few years.
In response, South Africa cut off power supplied to Zimbabwe forcing the latter to implement debilitating power cuts in 2019.
The two countries eventually agreed on a payment plan whereby Zimbabwe was obliged to pay US$890 000 every week to clear the debt as well as secure limited power supplies.