The Zambia Forestry and Forest Industries Corporation (ZAFFICO) has expressed shock over the Power utility ZESCO’s stance that local companies that supply wooden poles are not able to deliver the required number, specifications and quality of poles ordered, hence the reason why the utility has opted to import the poles.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, ZESCO Spokesperson Henry Kapata stated that the local suppliers [ZAFFICO and CFC] have no capacity to supply 100% of the poles order and that they are unable to meet 100% pole quality requirement standards.
ZESCO has insisted that local companies are falling short on quality and has proceeded to award the tenders to foreign firms at the expense of local and even Lusaka Securities Exchange listed ZAFFICO.
He said quality poles demand that a poles should be able to stand for twenty five years without having any challenges. “We go for quality and specifications, we may have certain local companies that are in business and if they are going to deliver poles that [are thin and] look like street pole lights, we cannot go for them. Am not saying there is anyone but specifications and quality is what will determine who to award the contract to deliver poles,” he said.
He said ZESCO will not go beyond boarders if the local are producing and delivering the quality poles. The challenge ZESCO is currently facing with the Local suppliers is that they do not meet the demand whenever they are engaged.
But when contacted by the Zambian Business Times –ZBT, ZAFFICO Public Relations Manager Ireen Chipili said she would not comment further on the matter stating that “ZESCO is an independent company and they choose which suppliers they want to deal with”.
“Am actually surprised that that the statement you got from [ZESCO] because we actually have a running contract with ZESCO since 2020 and we are still supplying them with high quality poles,” she said.
When further asked why ZAFFICO is not investing more to meet the quality specifications, ZAFFICO Public Relations Manager Chipili requested for a formal press query so that she could give more details on the matter.
Some stakeholders have accused ZESCO of deliberately coming up with some technical standards to disqualify ZAFFICO, CFC and other local suppliers in order to justify contracting firms from outside Zambia. Others say it’s because of vested interests and possible corrupt practices that may be driving some of these decisions to import when the country has huge forests to meet the entire annual ZESCO poles demand.
ZESCO is yet to issue a comprehensive statement to clear the air on what has motivated the company to proceed with the issuance of the tender to foreign firms when Lusaka Security Exchange listed companies such as ZAFFICO could meet the demand. See article were ZESCO claimed that there was lack of capacity with local firms ZAFFICO, CFC have failed to meet pole quality-specifications-zesco/
