Zimbabwe was duped when it agreed to allow a UK investor to take over the country’ biggest beef processor, the Cold Storage Company, because the investor “is a high-tech streetwise con artist”, workers have said in an open letter to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The workers said they had no doubt that Mnangagwa was a listening President so he must quickly look into the deal before the state-owned company is stripped of its assets.
The government announced in May that it had entered into a deal with Boustead Beef to resuscitate the CSC.
Investigations by The Insider showed that the directors of the company are former Zimbabwean farmers whose specialty is tobacco and not beef.
The principal director Nick Havercroft has refused to answer questions from The Insider saying all questions should be directed to the Ministry of Agriculture.
It was not clear why the ministry was involved since this was a private investor whose project was cleared by cabinet.
Boustead Beef has made a lot of promises through the local media most of which have not been implemented, clearly indicating that Havercroft has a link with the Ministry of Agriculture or some top government official.
Efforts to get clarification from Parliament’s Land and Agriculture Portfolio committee have so far been unsuccessful.
Six months down the line, the workers are crying that Mnangagwa must have realised by now that Zimbabwe was taken for a ride by the investor.
Below is the full letter to Mnangagwa:
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