Conrad Mwanawashe in BULAWAYO

Government is cleaning the Ziscosteel balance sheet to make the faded iron and steel giant attractive to interested investors. Officially opening the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries 2016 annual congress on Wednesday, Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha said Ziscosteel’s revival strategy involves expanding the iron and steel sector so that it can contribute significantly to economic development.“The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development is currently in the process of cleaning the balance sheet of Ziscosteel so that any potential investor can take over without carrying the burden of the old company.

‘‘We want to resuscitate Zisco,” said Minister Bimha.

A number of potential investors are currently angling for Zisco following the collapse of the short-lived marriage with Indian based Essar Holdings.

“We are engaging a number of aspiring investors to resuscitate Zisco and to explore other iron and steel initiatives,” he said without disclosing the identities of the investors.

We should look at an expanded iron and steel sector because we want to venture into other products Zisco was not able to produce. He said the bickering between ministries during the four-year inclusive Government had a negative impact on the Essar deal and that mistake should not be repeated going forward as Zisco is central to economic development.

“One of the lessons from the Zisco fiasco is that we should never go into an inclusive government because we spent time bickering while the investor was waiting for us to conclude the deal.

“By the time we wanted the investor to move in, the investor had spent his money elsewhere. Commodity prices also had gone down,” said Minister Bimha.

The CZI congress, which is running until tomorrow, is running under the theme “Strengthening Value Chains for Sustainable Industrialisation and Economic Development”.

Minister Bimha said globally value chains have been applied as developmental tools for economic growth.

“The importance placed on the need for the development of value chains regionally and globally calls for Zimbabweans to up their game and move with the rest of the world. At this point in time, I fervently call upon players in the private sector to domesticate the global and regional industralisation strategies through taking ownership and leading the implementation processes of these strategies,” said Minister Bimha.

CZI president Busisa Moyo said the business representative body earlier this year identified 18 value chains and will be continuing to expand the list as a guide to research based on players who are operating in low-scale output or broken value chains.

The CZI chief however said the Zimbabwe economy is at a crossroads.

“We have seen a dramatic collapse in both business and consumer confidence over the past few months. Among other things based on formal and informal responses we are seeing delays in foreign payments, reduced consumer spending due to cash shortages, the perceived or actual imbalance between Real Time Gross Settlement Account vs the underlying inventory of Dollars and Nostro balances backing the account, the subsequent panic withdrawals, dissaving and combative mode adopted by the general public,” said Mr Moyo.

You Might Also Like

Comments