ZISCOsteel project is still alive and kicking – Bimha

HON. SEN. B. SIBANDA: Hon. Minister, I would like to seek education from you because Zimbabweans are laden with these debt assumptions, can the Government not do something in costing so that the costing does not affect the Zimbabwean citizens, instead remain the paperwork between the buyer and seller so that they can negotiate about a going concern so that this thing is taken over as a going concern where going concerns are involved, employers and employees do their paperwork which does not involve the citizens because once we start involving the citizens we are overloading the Zimbabwean citizen who is already poor.  Can you not do something Minister so that the costing is an inherent issue between Government and the buyer?  Thank you.

THE MINISTER OF INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT (HON. DR. BIMHA): Thank you Madam President.  Maybe to explain it differently, obviously there is no investor who wants to come, invest his money and also at the same time take over a debt.  That is one of the reasons why the previous agreement did not fly because we went and negotiated with ESSAR and we said to them can you take over the debt?  ESSAR said we can take over the debt but we cannot just take over the debt and you do not do something.  We will take over the debt, but we want to mine and also export what we mine and then it became an issue, to say you cannot export raw material; you cannot export iron ore – so we went into problems.

Therefore, the issue was that let the new investor come in with his money to invest into the production of steel and bring new equipment.  For your information, their assessment is that only 20% of what is at ZISCO is what they require. In other words, 80% of what you see at ZISCO is junk.  They will have to remove everything and throw it away; bring new equipment and a new plant.  So, they will bring almost 80% of the plant.

However, because I said Government is in the process of taking over the debt but it is not a burden to the citizens, because we have found out a formula; a solution to get the required money for a number of years towards repayment of that.  Now, we have at ZISCO what are called coke ovens, these coke ovens, once they are in operation, they produce coke which is used locally and also for export.  There is a company that used to repair these coke ovens and they have agreed to come and rehabilitate the coke ovens.  They have also negotiated with the creditor, who is in Germany, to say we are going to resuscitate this company; make it operational, sell the coke and the money that we get will go towards operational costs and what remains goes towards repayment of the debt.  So there is no burden to the citizens.  I thank you.

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