Bulawayo - Bulawayo based, Treger group would next month lay off 400 contract workers due to low capacity utilisation. In an interview the managing director, Mr James Buckle, said the situation had been compounded by cheap imports flooding the local market.Treger specialises in the manufacturing of plastic products. The company is struggling to operate due to shortage of raw materials and stiff competition from imports, Though our products are of higher quality than imports, locals consumers are looking at the prices since they have limited spending power, he said. He said the group had no choice but to down size their operations due to the constrained market environment but hopefully in the future might consider the position.
If business is normal we employ a workforce of 7 500, however at the moment we are operating below capacity with 4 200 employees which we will also cut down to 3 800 in July, said Mr Buckle. He said they were surviving on exports that havealso gone down as most economies have been affected by global recession. He said the company had plans to increase workers salaries but failed as production continued to fall.
Workers requested an increase of their salaries by 50 percent and we can not pay that kind of money at the moment due to the depressed environment, said Mr Buckle.
At the moment the company is paying workers US$50 fortnightly.
He said the group had applied for a loan from the Government and hoped to get assistance to get the company back to its usual production capacity. We applied for a loan from the Government. However, we have not yet got a response, said Mr Buckle.
He urged the Government to protect local industry as imports were flooding the market.
There is need for the Government to restrict imports, at the moment cheap bags from China are what customers are buying at the expense of our quality products, he said.