Bleak future for Bulawayo’s Marvo

Struggling Bulawayo firm Marvo Stationery Manufacturers  has failed in its bid for a second loan from the Distressed Industries and Marginalised Areas Fund (Dimaf) and is likely to be liquidated, its judicial manager has said.

The company received $758 000 in 2012 from Dimaf but failed to recover. Judicial manager Chrispen Mwete of C Mwete and Company in April accused directors of swindling the firm out of $150 000 and failing to account for over $100 000 from the loan.

The company needs a $1.5 million rescue package and Mwete said that the company had been denied funding from Dimaf, which is administered by the Central African Building Society (CABS), which left it with only one option for new investment.

“CABS finally came up with a no and now we have one investor who is supposed to come on board,” Mwete said.

“If that investor turns us down we have no choice but to apply for liquidation even though it will be very sad because of Marvo’s situation. We don’t want to waste each other’s time,” he added.

The company has struggled to cope with cheap imports and because of high cost of operating its old machinery.

Mwete said companies such as Marvo, one of the country’s most recognisable brands, should not go down as they are strategic to the country’s economic revival.

In May this year, Mwete said the company needed to raise $1.5 million within 90 days to escape liquidation.

However, the three months’ grace period lapsed in August with Mwete failing to secure the needed funds. Workers gave him another period to continue scouting for financiers than to have the company liquidated as that would not benefit them.

Currently, workers are on unpaid leave.

The company was established in 1966 and at its peak employed 600 people.-The Source

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