MBABANE – Ubombo Sugar Limited (USL) and Standard Bank Eswatini have reinforced their long-term growth ambitions and commitments to national development.
This is after Ubombo Sugar hosted a high-level delegation of chief executives from Standard Bank Group’s Southern and Central Africa region.
The engagement, held on Wednesday, formed part of Standard Bank’s Knowledge Sharing initiative and provided a platform for strategic alignment between the leading sugar producer and one of its key financial partners.
The delegation, led by Standard Bank Eswatini Chief Executive, Mvuselelo Fakudze, focused on gaining deeper insight into Ubombo Sugar’s operational model, growth trajectory and future investment plans.
USL Managing Director Muzi Siyaya, alongside Finance Head Philile Nxumalo, led a detailed familiarisation session that unpacked the company’s five-year strategic plan, with particular emphasis on operational efficiency, capacity expansion and renewable energy development.
Siyaya said the visit reflected the importance of transparent engagement with financial partners as Ubombo Sugar pursues large-scale, capital-intensive projects that are critical to both the company and the broader Eswatini economy.
“As part of our growth journey, it is essential that our partners fully understand what is happening under the hood,” Siyaya said. “Sharing our roadmap openly builds trust, strengthens partnerships and ensures that we move forward with a shared understanding of our long-term goals.”
At the centre of Ubombo Sugar’s expansion drive is a factory debottlenecking programme aimed at streamlining operations and unlocking additional processing capacity.
The initiative is designed to improve efficiency across the value chain and position the company to meet future demand in a competitive regional sugar market.
Equally significant is the company’s cogeneration expansion project, which will see renewable electricity exports to the national grid increase to 40 megawatts (MW) from the current 17MW.
The project is anchored on biomass-based generation using bagasse, a by-product of sugar cane processing, reinforcing Ubombo Sugar’s role in advancing Eswatini’s clean energy transition.
The Standard Bank delegation’s visit comes against the backdrop of a recently signed Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between Ubombo Sugar Limited and the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC). The agreement commits USL to supplying 40MW of electricity to the national grid once the expanded cogeneration plant becomes operational.
During the PPA signing, Siyaya revealed that E900 million of the E1.5 billion cogeneration project will be financed through Eswatini’s domestic financial institutions, a development he described as a major milestone for local investment and financial sector participation.
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