via No takers for CSC, debt puts off suitors – Zhanda | The Source on June 4, 2014
Government is struggling to find a partner to revive former meat processing giant Cold Storage Company as suitors are being turned off by the $22 million debt hanging over the company, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
CSC was at one time the largest meat processor in Africa, handling up to 150,000 tonnes of beef and associated bi-products a year and exporting beef to the European Union, but mismanagement and persistent outbreaks of foot and mouth diseases halted exports in 2001, affecting its viability.
“We have been looking, but unfortunately up to now nothing has come up,” Paddy Zhanda, deputy minister in charge of Livestock in the Ministry of Agriculture told The Source in an interview.
CSC is one of the state enterprises earmarked for privatisation and owes workers $2,1 million in arrears.
The bleeding parastatal recorded a $3 million loss in the first half of 2013 and requires $58 million to recapitalise. Last year it was directed by government to look to private-public partnerships for funding.
Talks between a 40-member consortium of livestock farmers in Matabeleland and a Brazilian financier seeking to purchase a stake in CSC came to nothing, the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) national livestock chairperson, Irene Maphenduka said.
“There is nothing at the moment. We are exploring many avenues which I cannot disclose now but nothing has come out,” Maphenduka said.
In February this year, Zhanda told Parliament that problems at the CSC were worsened by government’s failure to finance its activities, leading to the closure of its plants in Masvingo, Kadoma, Marondera and Chinhoyi.
COMMENTS
Waiting to see the motive behind any “investor” who’ll pour any money into any of these parastatals. You gotta be in serious need of help, if not outright brain dead.
Paddy zhanda. Connected to mugarbage. A cellphone farmer like made. Fat looting turds
I would not agree that Mr Zhanda is a cellphone farmer.He has been a serious hands-on pig farmer long before land invasions and also in cattle breeding.I have never met him but I saw his pig project which even had its own reasonable sized abbatoir.
Close them all the people don’t need any processed food there isn’t any just go to the local aid organisation they will feed you. If you are zanupf go to the local zanupf supplier show your party crd and they will feed you.
A great example of the wholesale destruction of the economy by ZANU and mugarbage – well done boys, another one bites the dust.
Simple maths, there are not enough cattle in the country to justify opening such a big operation and you can’t count grubby little “Hard Mashona” as cattle more like over sized goats.
Another example of an institution built during the Rhodesian Sanction years, having proved its success under these conditions, targeted by the ZANU Government at independence as a source of income and slowly but surely destroyed. Not from foot and mouth outbreaks just plain mismanagement and misappropriation! This establishment like so many in our country is now a broken toy but the Government will still try trade on the past reputation, they will also require 51% from any investor. And the investor shoulder their Dept. what a wonderful playground these ZANU bully’s play in!
Why look for foreign investors. Just indeginise it since it is based on our natural resources!
Gono, Chiyangwa, Kasukuwere, Kaukonde, Mandiwanzira, Porusingadyi, chinotimba-here is a golden chance for indeginisation
Do you know I have always wondered how many people their ‘business ventures’ employ(not talking of their garden boys)and why with all their impressive ‘assets’ these beneficiaries of indegenisation do not seem to flash anything by way of busness other than huge tracts of land and big houses(dachaus). Where do they invest their money?
The Cold Storage Commission was one of the best managed parastatals in the then Rhodesia producing high quality meat products comparable to the best in the world. Somehow, even through the real sanctions, the state-owned entity was growing from strength to strength, employing thousands of people. Its activities were so well managed that throughout the value chain the constructive role of the CSC was visible, acknowledged and evidently beneficial to the country as a whole. It was clear that the CSC was a sterling example of what a parastatal is meant to do for a country. Besides, the CSC did not just depend on beef from the farmers but also had its own Zeederburg Ranches across the country that strategically kept supplies constant. What we are experiencing now with the CSC is a sad indictment on those claiming to be a government of the people. It would be interesting to know what has since happened to the well resourced and planned Zeederberg Ranches. If the well conceived ARDA could be vandalized the was it has been, there is no doubt that these estates have suffered a similar fate! Pillaged to nothing! The greed, the incompetence, the ignorance, the depravity, the ignominy of ZPF is unequalled in any part of the world and I fear as long as we have this kind of government,practising a scotched earth policy against its own citizens, Zimbabwe will be the worst of a banana republic!
its already there
Did they also have an ex Zanla Commanding Officer heading this parastatal? Those people where the curse of most parastatals. I cannot understand why Robert thought running a business was the same as teaching men how to shoot each other.