TINASHE MAKICHI
Former employees at government controlled Cold Storage Company (CSC) have tightened grip on the parastatal’s assets and operations, frustrating the new investor Boustead Beef, Business Times has established.
An investigation by Business Times found that the new investor has been denied access to the Harare and Masvingo depots by the former employees who are now bragging of enjoying the protection of top officials from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement.
Business Times can also report that there are close to 50 companies leasing the CSC Harare depot facilities.
But, only three companies are remitting rentals to Boustead Beef and CSC while the majority are remitting rentals to ex-CSC employees who have maintained grip on the company’s assets.
Business Times can report that part of Harare depot facilities have since been subdivided to small warehouses and SMEs shops.
The ex-employees have also assigned their proxies and representatives to man the premises and make sure the new investor is denied access to the premises and all the important information.
This has seen them locking doors on facilities that are housing critical material and information including cold rooms.
“The investor came with engineers to assess the state of cold rooms at the Harare depot, but they found all the facilities locked.
When they tried to gain access that is when they were told by the proxies’ manning the complex that they had an order to deny them access from a team of former CSC managers and board members,” a source said.
“The proxies even bragged of enjoying the protection of top officials at the Ministry (names withheld). The proceeds from the leasing of the facilities are shared with powerful people in government.”
Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement permanent secretary, John Basera, said the rot at the parastatal was one of the reasons the company had to be put under receivership.
“We have been made aware of issues taking place at CSC and this is one of the reasons why the company had to be put under corporate rescue to address these issues as well as protecting the assets,” Basera said.
This has Cabinet approval and we believe these issues will be resolved soon as we await recommendations from BDO Zimbabwe.”
Business Times reported last week that former managers and some top officials in the Ministry of Agriculture were frustrating the implementation of recommendation of a recent audit on the meat processor.
The audit unearthed that senior managers and board members were milking off the parastatal.
An investigation by Business Times revealed that several of them are now in the spotlight due to a number of allegations including asset stripping and the stealing at least of 10 000 cattle through government’s cattle heifer breed schemes.
There were unsanctioned awarding of long-term leases of company assets for a song to top officials or their associates.
Some political big wigs are also said to be beneficiaries of questionable lease agreements and are now listed as long-standing tenant debtors, resulting in CSC losing huge amounts of dollars in potential revenue.
According to documents in our possession there has been rampant corruption and unlawful dissipation of assets by certain executive members, board members and some government officials.
Hence the investor has failed to make head or tail of the agreement and the implementation.
Sources said it will be an uphill task for Agriculture minister Anxious Masuka since he was in the previous board that failed to implement the audit recommendations.
“This is going to be a litmus test for Masuka and the government considering the rampant looting that has continued unabated at CSC.
This is government property being looted without any action being taken and the question remains: who is benefiting from this lawlessness?”
Efforts to get a comment from Masuka were fruitless as he was not picking calls.
An investigation by Business Times has further unearthed that the government on its part also sold a dummy to the British investor by dangling an empty asset that was facing a litany of lawsuits with some of the assets discussed in the deal already attached by creditors.
For instance ZAMCO attached CSC’s Bulawayo Abattoir and the canning factory to settle an obligation of around ZWL$4m while there are other numeral pending court cases and orders which are ready to be executed by creditors anytime.
Other creditors include National Social Security Authority and ZESA Holdings among others.
In 2019, the government entered into a partnership agreement with a United Kingdom based investor, Boustead Limited, to revive CSC.
The investor promised to inject about US$130m into CSC over 5 years for the purpose of reviving operations, refurbishing the industrial assets, ranches, feedlots and residential properties.
The investor has faced resistance forcing the government to seek High Court’s nod for the parastatal to be placed under an interim judicial manager, Ngoni Kudenga. T
The application was granted. fffffffff
