Botswana to sell ailing Chinese-built power plant to another firm from China
Gaborone — Botswana will not sell back its troubled 600MW power plant to the Chinese company that built it, as had been widely expected, and will instead offload it to a different Beijing-controlled firm, according to government documents seen by Reuters on Friday. Documents from Green Technology, Energy Security, and the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources showed that negotiations with China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) would start soon over the proposed sale of the coal-fired station. The power plant was built by another Chinese company, China National Electric Equipment Corporation (CNEEC) at a cost of $970m, but had broken down repeatedly since commissioning in 2012, leading to a reliance on diesel generators and imports from SA. It is not clear if there is any relationship between the company that built the plant, CNEEC, and the potential buyer, CMEC. On its website, CMEC says it operates in 150 countries and is a part of the Sinomach group of companies...
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