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NewsDay

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Hwange Colliery to finalise salary, allowances cuts

Business
HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) is finalising salary and allowances cuts for management as part of a raft of costcutting measures.

HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) is finalising salary and allowances cuts for management as part of a raft of costcutting measures.

BY Nqobile Bhebhe

Hwange Colliery is primarily listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and also listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.

Late last year, management was ordered by Mines and Mining Development minister Walter Chidakwa to cut their salaries and allowances by 50% and to deliver in three months, failure of which they would be fired.

HWANGE-COLLIERY

The lowest paid employee at the coal mining company reportedly takes home $274 per month.

The coal mining firm is said to have 24 executive managers with 13 of the administrators reporting directly to managing director, Thomas Makore.

‘The reduction of overheads through management salaries and benefits cuts is being finalised,” said acting chairman, Jemister Chininga briefly in restated unaudited condensed financial results for the six months ending 30 June, 2015.

He said there was now “undivided management focus on the mining division. The trust being to improve the efficiencies and cost leadership in order to realise optimum margins in the backdrop of declining commodity prices on the local and international markets”.

Chininga said the firm has also introduced cost cutting measures that will reduce costs of coal.

“The infrastructure costs of maintaining the town and utilities will be shared with other coal mining companies and stakeholders around Hwange.”

He added that HCCL has been awarded new coal concessions in the Western Areas, Lubimbi east and Lubimbi west and that will increase the firm’s lifeline by at least 50 years.

Last year, HCCL purchased equipment worth $31,2 million from a Belarus firm, Belaz and BEML of India through a vendor financing scheme secured from PTA Bank and India Exim Export Bank respectively.

Production was expected to be boosted but not much has been realised from the use of the machinery.

A few months after the commissioning of the equipment management admitted that about five of the heavy machinery that were acquired had faults.