Industry and Commerce, Minister Mike Bimha

A sulphuric acid plant by local fertiliser manufacturer, ZimPhos, is now almost 50 percent complete with indications it will come online in the first quarter of 2018, Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha has said.
 ZimPhos produces the sulphuric acid in two separate plants, with one using imported sulphur and another using local pyrites from Iron Duke Mine.
Some of the sulphuric acid is sold to the mining sector for minerals extraction as well as to other manufacturing sectors.
The bulk of the acid is, however, used for super phosphates manufacture. These super phosphates are used primarily in the local manufacture of granular compound fertilisers.
Bimha said work on the plant was progressing well, with government already having invested over $2 million in the plant in Msasa.
“Well, I am not privy to much of what is happening at the plant but I know it is over 50 percent complete… The first quarter completion remains the main target and we are on track to meet it. Over $2 million has gone into the plant,” Bimha said on the side-lines of an event in the capital last week.
While a Zimphos source told The Financial Gazette that work on the plant had at some point been halted due to foreign currency shortages which affected imported inputs, construction had resumed.
“We stopped for a little period because some of the construction material needed to be imported and we did not have foreign currency, but we are now back in construction,” the source said.
Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Ringson Chitsiko, last week told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands and Agriculture that fertiliser manufacturers and agro-chemical producers were facing foreign currency challenges anticipated to result in late delivery of fertilisers and other inputs to farmers.
Former Industry and Commerce deputy minister, Chiratidzo Mabuwa, recently told senators that the plant was being constructed using funds from a $10 million facility mobilised by the central bank to help ailing local fertiliser manufacturers in retooling.
“The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) mobilised resources to avail to local fertiliser firms to enable them to retool and modernise. During the last quarter of 2015, Zimphos secured a $10 million loan from the RBZ. Of that amount, $5 million has so far been utilised at Dorowa Mine to buy equipment as well as refurbish the plant.
“As a result of the intervention, Dorowa Mine is now operating at 60 percent capacity utilisation,” the deputy minister said.
ZimPhos manufactures super phospates while Dorowa Minerals produces for fertiliser.
Government — through the National Social Security Authority — also extended a $20 million facility to local fertiliser companies to facilitate the retooling process in the sector.
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