GOVERNMENT has cast its net wide in the search for a suitable suitor to resuscitate the now-defunct Ziscosteel following the collapse of the $750 million Essar deal due to political bickering.
BY MTHANDAZO NYONI
Officially opening the ongoing Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) annual congress in Bulawayo, Industry and Commerce minister Mike Bimha yesterday said discussions were underway with a number of investors interested in reviving the firm.
“We are engaging a number of aspiring investors, as I speak, in order to resuscitate Ziscosteel. The Ministry of Finance is in the process of cleaning Ziscosteel’s balance sheet so that when an investor comes, we are bringing an investor to come and invest in Zisco in rehabilitating and in expanding Zisco, not like we have done in the past to invite an investor and say ‘Can you take over our debt?’,” Bimha said.
The government, in 2011 signed a $750 million agreement with Indian firm Essar Africa Holdings to revive the firm, but the deal collapsed because of bickering in the then coalition government.
At its peak in the 1980s, the Redcliff-based Ziscosteel employed more than10 000 workers and thousands more in downstream industries.
