By Chipo Gudhe

The Minister of Industry and Commerce Mangaliso Ndhlovu has moved in fast to patch fissures between the Ziscosteel board and project manager Kuvimba Holdings. Minister Mangaliso Ndhlovu last Friday visited Zisco together with the Midlands Provincial Affairs  Devolution  Minister Owen Ncube and Redcliff Member of Parliament July Moyo.

Ndhlovu and his counterparts spent almost two hours in a closed door meeting with the Zisco board and management.

Insiders at the comatose steel company revealed that the board and Kuvimba are at odds, primarily over issues such as the stripping of company assets and non-payment of workers’ salaries.

In an interview following the meeting, Minister Ndhlovu hinted at unresolved issues between the board and Kuvimba.

“Following my reassignment to the ministry of industry it was important that I come on the ground to familiarize myself given some of the concerns that the board and management had highlighted. I needed to come and have a discussion here. We now have a clearer picture of the situation here and obviously there are a number of challenges we will be addressing going forward particularly to do with the relationship between Zisco  and the project managing company but we took some decisions which are short term immediate that can alleviate the situation especially to do with the non payment of workers as well as security concerns over the assets of Zisco.

The minister said they were worried about the security of the assets.

“We are also worried about the security of the assets and it is very important that as the board they have control over that working together with the project managing company so that as board and management they will also reinstitute measures that will see them regain control of the security company. We can not have a board and management that does not know the status of their assets,” he said.

He said he will engage Kuvimba to also get their side.

“There are a number of challenges which have to do with the implementation of the agreement and these require a lot of internal consultations. It might be premature to highlight them in public we still have to engage the interested parties.

The minister said legal proceedings will be taken to bring asset strippers to book if the audits determine that there were such illegal activities.

“If anything illegal was committed the law will take its course, there are no two ways about it. If the audits reveal that there has been any illegality the law will take its course,’ he said.

Kuvimba last year took interest in resuscitating the mothballed steel giant dangling a US$3oo million capital injection.

Insiders at the company allege that Kuvimba is on an asset stripping orgy whilst workers have gone for more than ten months with no salaries.