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Getting the Chisumbanje Ethanol Project back on track
Deputy Prime Minister Prof. Arthur G.O. Mutambara
September 19, 2012

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1. Introduction

The Chisumbanje Ethanol Project is a national project of great strategic importance where ethanol is produced from sugarcane. The project consists of sugarcane plantations in Chisumbanje and Middle Sabi, with the Ethanol plant being located in Chisumbanje. World class irrigation infrastructure has been put in place, and an outstanding ethanol producing plant constructed. The Project has potential to radically improve our fuel security and economics, introduce efficient irrigation schemes, support smallholder out-grower schemes, create jobs, generate large amounts of electric power, and stimulate major downstream industries.

However, several issues and problems at the Chisumbanje Ethanol Project have resulted in the stoppage of production activities at the ethanol plant. To address these matters, there is need for a common understanding of the challenges the project faces. It is within this context that this Inter-Ministerial Committee has done its work and produced the current report. The objective is to provide a holistic solution to the project's challenges in a way that allows production to resume and for the project to realize its full potential in contributing to the economic development of Zimbabwe.

Committee members visited Chisumbanje on the 22nd and 26th of August, 2012 on a fact finding mission, and met in Harare on the 3rd and 17th of September 2012 to discuss their findings and to start the process of building a portfolio of solutions that will put the project back on its course.

The Chisumbanje Ethanol Project is an enterprise of strategic and national importance, which has the potential to be the nucleus for the development of an ethanol industrial cluster. The project currently has issues and problems in two broad areas, which are: social and community related, and, technical and business related. Long term and sustainable solutions should be found to these issues based on a thorough and technical analysis of the problems instead of politicizing the issue. The solutions should balance between three buckets of interests, that is, community, private and national. The solutions should provide a win-win scenario for these three potentially conflicting areas of interests. The resolution of the challenges should be proffered in ways that protect the integrity of the government while engaging all the stakeholders involved and affected.

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