Were Mnangagwa and Mthuli Ncube taken for a ride by Boustead Beef?

Reginald Shoko, who now speaks for the company, told the Chronicle: “The revitalisation programme is on hold for now because of Covid-19. As CSC-Boustead Beef Zimbabwe, we are relying much on China for most of the equipment and other components that are imported from that country to facilitate the rehabilitation programme.

“So, everything as regards our rehabilitation project has been suspended now. We will resume the programme once South Africa lifts the national lockdown, which we hope will happen in the next three weeks or so, then we would be able to import into the country some of our equipment, which is already in South Africa.”

So far, it has been false promise after false promise. Havercroft has withdrawn from the public leaving Shoko to clean up the mess. The situation is so terrible that one senior government official privately admitted that the government did not handle that deal well because it was now apparent that Boustead Beef had no capacity.

It is, however, not clear why the government has allowed Boustead Beef to stay at the company this long because workers have been complaining about the new investor from as far back as May, when cabinet announced the deal.

While they were being paid their monthly salaries, the workers claimed that the money was coming from rentals of CSC properties and not from the investor, whom they said had no capacity and was stripping the company’s assets.

Workers also complained that the company was refusing to show them the agreement it had entered into with the government so that they could at least know their status, that is, whether they were employed by the new company or by the Cold Storage Company.

Shoko told The Insider that the company had no obligation to do so. He said the workers were employed by the government, so if the government wanted to show them the agreement it was free to do so.

Boustead Beef has refused to comply with a Labour Court order, delivered in Masvingo, to release the agreement to its workers.

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