MARONDERA - The remaining major employer here, FARMA-RAMA Company, recently closed shop and was forced to put hundreds of its workers on the street. The company had staggered for some time under the heavy weight of mismanagement by black and indigenous new shareholders who forced their way into this former white commercial farmers run venture.
Following temporary closure and eventual down sizing of operations at Cold Storage Company, CSC, at the height of the chaotic land invasions, FARMA-RAMA had remained the major employer in Marondera.
The company specialized in transport and hardware ventures in the interest of a diversity of communities. Its transport department was a major cargo and farm produce road transporter across provinces. The hardware department was a one stop farmers shop in town, with a shop floor measuring hundreds of square meters.
With farm invasions and looting of white commercial farmers property shifted into a high gear by Zanu (PF) fat cats, major shareholding at FARMA-RAMA fell victim to the ill conceived frenzy. Suspected Zanu (PF) sharks allegedly connected to the dreaded state Central Intelligence Organization, CIO, and war veterans bulldozed their way into the former thriving Farmers Cooperative and helped themselves to free shareholding in the company.
Without making contributions towards the capital base at the company, new indigenous shareholding directors would monitor monthly company cash flows and pocket profits leaving nothing to meet running costs. Standard goods inventory and disposal procedures flew out of the window as business procedures turned haphazard. The new management would go out on holiday at resort centres for days on end while the company began showing signs of stress. If the FARMA RAMA disaster is anything to go by, then government proposed black empowerment policy should be given a second thought before the economy takes another irreversible down turn, said a long serving worker at the company.
The majority of remaining white shareholders left the company. Business turned unprofitable and the payment of workers salaries became erratic. Hardware warehouses gradually ran out of stock and no restocks were made.
As problems at the company became too glaring to ignore, new company directors led by Managing Director Brian Mutandiro, started shunning company premises and avoided meetings with worried workers. On August 30, the bubble bust and company trucks contracted to NGOs to ferry food relief items for the needy throughout the country were called back to the company. Management advised workers that the company had closed shop and exit packages would be arranged in due course.
Anxious workers panicked and kept vigil at the company complex, to ensure no asset would leave the premise before promised exit packages were paid. Drivers confiscated keys to vehicles under their charge in case the company failed to award their dues. Everybody else kept an eye on company assets at his work place. The plight of workers was worsened by the admission by new management that they had failed to resuscitate company operations due to economic constraints. We are in a helpless situation, said a management staff who served at the company for 14 years.
President Mugabe and Minister of Youth Empowerment, Saviour Kasukuwere, remained adamant that the 51 per cent black empowerment policy would help promote economic growth.
Brian Mutandiro, who was at one time at DELTA Beverages, Posts and Telecommunications Cooperation, PTC, among other organizations struggling to survive, remained unavailable for comment.
Post published in: News
What a load of piffle. No facts, just malicious character assassination, you’re pathetic!