T&N owned SMM, SMM is part of the British Virgin Islands which is SMM UK and SMM Zimbabwe. What had happened here Mr. Speaker is that when he saw the advertisement in the London Financial Times, he mentioned that he had interest in purchasing, because he helped finance a few companies whilst he was working for the World Bank. This letter shows that when he made arrangements, he flew to London and met with Mr. Carruthers and he said that he was interested in purchasing Shabanie Mine. During the discussions, he said go and make an offer where he, from New York, flew to London and after the meeting, flew to South Africa. When he flew to South Africa, he put a team together and sent a team back to Zimbabwe to come and do due diligence on the mine. They found out that the mine’s assets were $60 million then, and that was in 1995.
That time we had not yet dollarized, we were still in Zimbabwean dollar era. Mr. Speaker, what we need to understand is, $30 million was owed to Shabanie Mine, $30 million was in stocks and they were owing a lot of people money but they were still running and managing to pay people’s salaries and managed to contribute towards the GDP. Mr. Speaker, I am saying all this because I want you to understand that when that transpired, the then Minister of Justice, put this mine under reconstruction. When it was put under reconstruction, it had 26 subsidiary companies. Out of the 26 subsidiary companies, all of them have been striped and sold. FSI is gone, Turnall Asbestos is gone, MD Security is gone and Belt@Fasteners is gone. The mine nothing – it is just a skeleton. We have 42 million tonnes of asbestos sitting under – ground. A research was done Mr. Speaker, to show that this fibre has no disease at all. It is a very clean fibre and I have the record here. There is nothing wrong with that fibre. Any Member who feels that fibre has a problem, must read this book and follow up and debate on the facts based on what was produced – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – It is written here.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, you may proceed Honourable.
HON. HOLDER: You will have your time. I will submit it. Mr. Speaker, what we need to understand is that in 1996, SMM, Turnall Asbestos, Tube and Pipe were all part of Shabanie Mine. Now, Shabanie Mine, everything is deteriorating and the water level is coming up. Every month they are getting a bill to pay ZESA for pumping the water out but at the end of the day, you have got over 5 500 workers that have never gotten their money, that have worked for most of their lives for Shabanie Mine. Others have perished and still have not received their money.
What we need to understand is that when something goes bad, you will find that the flies will go there. I am saying this because you can see that the reconstruction where a single person makes a decision and dissolve the whole board that had to contribute to ensure that the mine was running. This mine ran long before most of the Hon. Members were born but now it is a sad and sorry site because I represent that constituency. I always come across the question, is this mine ever going to open? Mr. Speaker, many Hon. Members here were busy grumbling and saying that there is no asbestos that does not have a disease, but most of their houses are roofed with asbestos and the sewer and water pipes are asbestos. It is only now we are beginning to change.
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