Zeco share price now just 0.01 cents.
His Native Investment Africa group began investing heavily in the city in 1998, notably in G & D Shoes, Belmont Leather and Zeco Holdings. Most of the companies have since closed and engineering giant Zeco, founded in 1964 to supply railway wagons to the NRZ, is on its knees. Last week Zeco’s market capitalisation stood at $46,000, with a share price of 0.01 US cents on the local stock exchange.
“I don’t know how Chiyangwa made his money save for what he did to a variety of Bulawayo-based companies that he took over and drove into the ground,” said opposition politician and top city lawyer, David Coltart, recently.
He was concerned that Zimbabwe’s wealth and precious foreign currency was spent on expensive imports such as Bentleys and Rolls Royces, saying “Surely our foreign currency would be better spent on vehicles made either in Zimbabwe or at least South Africa, which is on the African continent.”
Coltart said most of Zimbabwe’s millionaires had made their money off the back of the working class, through plunder, asset stripping and corruption.
Chiyangwa hit back saying he had never bought “a single operating company in Bulawayo in the sense of a going concern”. He had just bought the assets of dead companies at public auction, he said. “What Coltart is selectively failing to inform the public is that these companies had been severely stripped and run-down by their former owners,†he said.
Chiyangwa also accused Coltart of profiting from the troubled companies saying “they made good money by presiding over the liquidation of the outlined properties”.
In response, Coltart insisted that Chiyangwa could have done a better job of recapitalising and reviving the companies.
“As I recall, he and others took over companies which are now shells, go to G & D now and see. What he says is his point of view but he needs to speak to two or three people and see if they’ll agree with him. He had access to finance, which is what those firms needed at the time – access to capital and removal of red tape. No doubt the companies were in trouble but he could have helped. He never made an effort to make the companies viable despite the links he had with political power,” said Coltart.
Post published in: Featured