ENERGY minister Fortune Chasi has given Intratrek exactly six months to feed 10 megawatts into the national grid, adding intrigue to the raging court case against the company after the Supreme Court this week ruled that its owner Wicknell Chivayo should stand trial.

Chivayo won a tender in 2015 to build a solar power plant in Gwanda, expected to feed 100 megawatts into the national grid, but the company missed the deadline due to protracted disagreements with government.

“In my communication of government’s unequivocal position with regards to the Gwanda project, I sought to deliver the ministry’s mandate to ensure availability of sufficient power to the country by all means necessary,” Chasi wrote on May 26.

Chasi said the agreement was arrived at after government took note of the involvement of high-ranking professionals who constituted the restructured Intratrek board, which include prominent lawyers Edwin Manikai, one of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s advisers, and Wilson Manase, adding that the new arrangement spoke volumes of integrity, professionalism and experience placed into the project.

Manase, the new chairman of the restructured Intratrek Zimbabwe board, said the government wanted to see Gwanda solar project completed and the engagements with Chasi were successful and they had already started work on the project to meet the six-month deadline.