HARARE – Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni has urged small businesses to invest in alternative energy sources in light of rolling power cuts in the country.

She said incessant power cuts being experienced were grossly impacting small to medium businesses since a lot of start-up projects could not afford alternative sources of energy such as generators.

Nyoni was announcing the inaugural 11-member Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises advisory council whose mandate is to tackle challenges faced by small and informal businesses.

“As a Ministry, we are very concerned because we are getting a lot of reports from the SMEs who are now affected very badly by the power cuts,” she said at an event held Friday in Harare.

“All we can say is that we continue to support and be in dialogue with the Ministry of Energy.

“We also want to urge the SMEs to look at green energy.

“I know initially it could be expensive but I think that eventually it is the way to go to make sure that we have solar panels that could drive some of our machines.

“I know generators are expensive but I just want the SMEs to know that the ministry is very concerned about the situation in which they find themselves.”

The Advisory Council is chaired by Moses Mwagura, who doubles as the chairperson of the Manicaland Chamber of SMEs.

Nyoni said finding solutions to the energy crisis would be one of the immediate tasks of the newly launched advisory council.

“This is one of the tasks that I am going to give to this council to look into alternative energy that could be one of the things that they start with.

“How can we then help them drive alternative energy that could then assist the SMEs,” she asked.

Speaking at the same event, Mwagura implored businesses to quickly adopt green energy sources to lessen the impact of ongoing electricity challenges.

“We as SMEs are equally affected. The only way is to engage with the Ministry of Energy so that we can find a lasting solution and at the same time encourage businesspeople and SMEs to look for alternative sources of power such as green power.

“We are going to encourage our SMEs to go that route,” he said.

Zimbabweans have been forced to endure 16 hours a day without electricity owing to factors that are viewed as both involuntary and manmade.

Government says the power crisis is set to ease starting June this year when the new Hwange power station unit 7 is expected to officially start supplying 300MW to the national grid.