Zimbabwe Alloys in the hunt for Working Capital

New Zimbabwe also reports that management at Zimbabwe Alloys Chrome (ZimAlloys) say they remain upbeat about the prospects of raising the US$58 million needed to bring back into operation key furnaces at the company’s Gweru base.The company is controlled by the Farai Rwodzi-General Mujuru-Interfin Bank syndicate.Farai Rwodzi is the Chairman representing General Mujuru whom he fronts.

Chief Executive Johan Oosthuizen said they were looking at restarting the three mothballed in the next six months at initial output of around 120,000 tonnes per year.

“Raising the capital is not a problem; we have various options to raise the money and we will be doing that in the coming few months,” Johan Oosthuizen was reported as saying at a mining conference in South Africa despite the fact that when Farai Rwodzi and his Interfin Banking Corporation cartel took over the company they promised to inject adequate working capital.

ZimAlloys ceased operations at its Great Dyke II mine and Inyala underground as well as other open-put mines in 2008 due to a lack of capital. In 2006 it was announced that BENSCORE Investments, a consortium representing Mujuru but led by his sidekick- errand boy-cum business partner Farai Rwodzi and Adam Molai has snapped up Zimbabwe Alloys Ltd (Zim-Alloys) for Z $90 billion from Anglo American Corporation Zimbabwe (AmZim).

The transaction was controversial after the Management and Staff claimed that Farai Rwodzi and his syndicate had muscled their way in on a deal which Anglo had long promised it would sell the Company to Management and staff.There were claims that Farai Rwodzi had intimidated workers and had some employees being arrested on trumped up charges just to silence them from opposing his consortium’s take over of the firm. There were also allegations of corruption and bribery on how Farai Rwodzi’s consortium won the Company.

But it will appoint a contractor to resume production in the next two weeks.

“We are also in the process of awarding a mining contract to a Zimbabwean contractor and we expect the mining end of business to resume very soon,” Oosthuizen said.