HLEKWENI Friends Rural Service Centre on the outskirts of Bulawayo is set to close at the end of June and its assets would be auctioned to pay debts and outstanding staff salaries.
NDUDUZO TSHUMA STAFF REPORTER
According to letters written to staff and tenants dated April 2 2014, Hlekweni board chairperson Sipho Nsimbi said the decision to cease operations at the centre and shut it down was reached after “thorough consideration to the extremely difficult financial circumstances at Hlekweni”.
“The board has looked at every option to allow Hlekweni to continue. None of these options gives a realistic prospect of breaking even or of paying our past debts. The only responsible path available is to stop the work of Hlekweni. The longer we carry on, the more difficult it will become,” Nsimbi said.
She said operations would cease after the completion of the current training courses in June.
“Some closing down activity will continue after June graduation, but these are planned to be complete by June 30.
“Hlekweni will not be recruiting trainees for a second intake in July and any students who have already expressed an interest will be informed that the courses will not run,” she said.
“All extension programmes have now stopped and no new ones will start. All staff engaged on such programmes were employed under fixed term contracts and these have all now expired.
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“Once all remaining payments from programme donors have been collected, staff will be paid in full in accordance with the agreements made with the programme donors.”
Nsimbi said all staff would be given three months’ notice of termination which will expire in early july.
She said workers were expected to complete their duties until they were no longer needed at which point they would not be required to work the full extent of their notice, adding plans were that no one would be working by June 30.
She said owners of Valindre Farm where Hlekweni is located were in the process of identifying tenants that would use the property after the vocational training institution has vacated the property.
“The assets of Hlekweni, vehicles, livestock and so on will be sold and the money raised will be used to pay our creditors, including staff who are owed unpaid salaries. If staff wishes to buy such assets in partial settlement of the debts, that will be made possible,” Nsimbi said.
She said the future use of the farm would determine the fate of the houses in which tenants and some members of staff live.
“The continued use of Samathonga Primary School is of utmost importance and everything will be done to ensure that the staff and children can attend school in peace and safety.
“Quaker support for Samathonga will continue unaffected as far as possible by the changes at Hlekweni,” she said.
Hlekweni was founded in 1967 as a rural training centre specialising in bio-intensive agriculture and offering practical training courses on subjects from building and carpentry to garment-making and early childhood education.
It was founded by missionaries Roy and Irene Henson as a partial response to problems bedevilling young primary school leavers in the late 1960s who were unable to proceed to secondary education or find formal employment.
