The deal in which a United Kingdom company is taking over Zimbabwe’s largest meat processor, the Cold Storage Company, which has been struggling for years, sounded too good to be true. And it is fast proving to be a mirage. The man who took over the CSC, Nick Havercroft, is more of a tobacco than
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa personally guaranteed that the government would provide $20 million for the retrenchment of Cold Storage Company workers to pave way for the joint venture partner Boustead Beef to have a clean start in reviving the ailing parastatal, according to an audio of a retrenchment committee meeting held at the CSC in
Boustead Beef, which entered into an agreement with the Zimbabwe government four years ago to revive the Cold Storage Company, seems to be more interested in the company’s assets than in reviving its operations. The assets are said to be worth about US$100 million today. Boustead Beef, which came in as a British investor but
The chief executive officer of United States-based Ethos Asset Management, which said last year it would invest an undisclosed amount in CSC-Boustead Beef, was arrested last month on charges of wire fraud. Carlos Manuel Da Silva Santos, a Portuguese national, was arrested in Newark, New Jersey as he arrived in the United States from abroad.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has portrayed himself as a listening president, a caring president. Now is the time to prove this, especially as one of the government’s most valuable companies, the Cold Storage Company, today holds a meeting to lay off more than 140 workers. The CSC indeed needs to be revived. Some jobs have to