Farai Musikavanhu
Beatific Gumbwanda
CHIREDZI – Zanu PF Chiredzi West parliamentary candidate, Farai Musikavanhu, has taken the fight to sugarcane giant Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe (THZ) management over what he describes as ill treatment and abuse of workers saying the company is making huge profits while workers live in squalor.
Musikavanhu, who is former THZ agriculture manager, said there is just nor room for ill treatment of workers in the new dispensation and will fight until the lives have been uplifted.
THZ is listed in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and, according to Musikavanhu, is recording large sums of profits for its operations in Zimbabwe.
In a media tour organized by Musikavanhu, he said the company is failing to upgrade the welfare of its employees who are living in houses without electricity while the company generates 39 megawatts of electricity from its Hippo Valley power station which is supplied into the national grid.
“I have no personal vendetta with my former company but I am just trying to make it right for the employees.
“This company is listed on the JSE and declares profits in Zimbabwe and their production level is at 75% installed capacity. We can’t say THZ suffers economic setbacks like what other companies did.
“This is called corporate corruption. The company generates electricity to the national grid but workers are living in dilapidated houses with no electricity. Electricity is only supplied to a bottle store and is a bottle store more important than the houses of employees?” said Musikavanhu.
Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe recorded 17.4 million profit in 2016 and 25 million in 2017.
Zimbabwe Sugarcane Milling Workers Union (ZSMIWU) Secretary General Faster Gono also expressed the same sentiments saying it is high time THZ looks into the welfare of its workers.
THZ has flighted an advert in newspapers saying it has launched a housing scheme for its workers where it is upgrading the old dilapidated houses for its workers.politics
