The chairman, Basil Nyabadza, said owing to the “harsh labour laws” they have had to hire out the services of skilled labour such as engineers and transporters.
“We hire out services to companies that can provide engineers, transport and tillage services for particular tasks under specified terms until we reform our tough labour laws,” he said.
Nyabadza said the current economic environment was not conducive to the old labour laws. “It is now 52 months since we called for labour reforms. The use of the US$ demands flexible labour and the labour laws we have are not flexible enough. If there is no work, you cannot retain people – that’s what the US$ demands. But we are reacting to that and it’s rather too late.
“Adoption of the US$ should have led to an urgent review of our labour laws and implementation,” he said.
Arda has 21 estates with a combined labour force of 6,500 workers – 70 percent of whom work on contracts that are renewed every nine months. The Chisumbanje ethanol plant employs over 3,000 workers.
Nyabadza joins other captains of industries who have been calling for labour reforms. But the move has been met with stiff resistance by the labour movements.
He also revealed that Arda has resuscitated 12 of its estates, which are now viably working above average, while the remainder is still operating at minimum levels.
He added that they were working on courting two investors every quarter to resuscitate their idle estates, which would further boost their labour force.
Post published in: Agriculture