ZIMBABWE - HARARE – The Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company, a prey for looting by Zanu-PF officials has stopped operations and is now depending on selling scrap metal to generate income and its workforce has slumped from 4 000 at its peak to less than 1 000.

 

 

The company is also surviving on selling coke breeze and chilled pull that had accumulated over the past 40 years, ZimDaily can reveal.

 

 

ZimDaily understands that there is  a sorry state of affairs at the once giant steel maker, whose residential compound now resembles a ghost town.

 

Blast furnace number four, the only one that was functional, was switched off last year.

Blast furnace number three has not been operating for years.

These furnaces are supposed to operate nonstop for at least eight years to avert contraction and collapse of inside brick lining.
 
ZimDaily can reveal that over US$12 million is needed for the realignment of blast furnace number four only and a Chinese company, China Shougang International, has been contracted to do the job.

Lack of funds has stalled progress though Ziscosteel recently received 60 percent of the realigning materials from China.

The material comprises special blast furnace bricks.

Coke ovens should run continuously for about 20 years, but are not functional and require major repairs that cost millions of dollars.

The company has an accumulated threemonth salary backlog and has placed its employees on a forced rotational two – week duty roster.

Employees are only paid for the two weeks that they report for duty and are struggling to make ends meet.

At its peak, Ziscosteel employed 4000 employees, but at the moment management says the company has around 2 000 workers, while workers say the workforce is less than 1000.

The majority of the skilled personnel such as engineers and artisans have left the company enmasse for greener pastures elsewhere.

Ziscosteel is capable of producing between 700 000 and one million tonnes of steel annually, but presently no production is taking place as major infrastructure has collapsed.

Both Industry and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube and Ziscosteel chief executive officer Alois Gowo confirmed the company was in
dire straits.

Indications are that production might resume around February next year.

Employees report for duty for “housekeeping purposes” save for those preparing for the realignment of blast furnace number four.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr Gowo attributed the company’s collapse to the illegal US sanctions, electricity and water shortages experienced last year.

He confirmed Ziscosteel had a backlog in salaries and expects to pay its employees July salaries this month.

Gowo confirmed that employees were on a rotational two weeks duty roaster saying the move was meant to avert retrenchment.

He said the arrangement would be in place up to December this year.

 Ziscosteel was lagging behind in paying Shougang International, which was awarded the realigning contract in 2007.

“We lost total production of hot metal in January 2008 because of power and water shortages. Blast furnace number four went cold.

 

In November last year we abandoned resuscitating the blast furnace opting for realignment,” he said.

Gowo said Ziscosteel had so far paid Shougang International US$5,3 million out of the US$12 million.

 

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Gowo said realignment of blast furnace number four was expected to start in December this year and it would be commissioned in February
next year.

He said about US$4 million was needed to repair the coke oven batteries and Ziscosteel was currently looking for possible financiers.

There are indications that a number of companies are interested in assisting the company repair its coke oven batteries.

News of the dire straits that have hit the giant steelmaker, impacting heavily on both the local community of Redcliff and the national economy, comes after Government had pumped around US$100 million intoZisco in a bid to rejuvenate its operations.

Industry and Commerce Minister Prof Ncube confirmed Government had pumped millions of dollars into Ziscosteel, but the company was still not operating.

He said the parastatal had resorted to selling scrap metal for survival.

Reports also link corruption and poor corporate governance to the state of the steel company.

In 2006, the then Minister of Industry and International Trade, Obert Mpofu told a parliamentary portfolio committee on Foreign Affairs, Industry and International Trade that the steelmaker had been looted by unnamed legislators and other senior company and government officials.

He later backtracked on his allegations and was subsequently charged for contravening a section of the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act.

Minister Mpofu made the corruption assertions while giving evidence on the management contract awarded to Global Steel Holdings and Ziscosteel that collapsed after the Indian firm did not release any of US$400 million as had been contractually agreed.

 

 

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JOKE OF THE DAY - Two confirmed bachelors sat talking, their conversation drifted from politics to cooking. “I got a cookbook once,” said one, “but I could never do anything with it.”

 

“Too much fancy work in it, eh?” asked the other.

 

“You said it. Every one of the recipes began the same way – Take a clean dish.””

 

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