Essar Africa Holding the new majority shareholders of New Zimsteel, formerly Ziscosteel, has dismissed doubts that the company will not be reopening anytime soon.
BLESSED MHLANGA STAFF REPORTER
Firdhose Coovadia, the Essar Africa board director told our sister paper NewsDay a lot of ground work has to be done before the former steel giant resumes operations.
“It is very important for the public to be aware that the defunct Ziscosteel plant requires an almost complete rebuild to ensure its revival and thus the sustainable production of quality steel for the Zimbabwean and regional markets,” he said in a statement.
“As such, operationalisation does not entail immediate construction or steelmaking — it is a fairly considered, technical and painstaking process of matching the available inputs in Zimbabwe (quality of iron ore and coking coal, availability of power and water etc) to the final engineering design and procurement that precedes any hard lifting or visible construction.”
According to sources, the plant Ziscosteel which has been closed for almost four years has become almost obsolete, which makes production of steel very expensive. Coovadia said Essar had already bought new equipment and completed a job evaluation on its workforce before its starting construction of a new plant on existing infrastructure.
“The engineering and procurement process is already well underway, so yes, work has begun in earnest towards revival of New Zimsteel,” he said.
“ I am hopeful that in the coming weeks and months you, and the people of Redcliff, will see the fruits of these efforts in visible on site activity.” Meanwhile, Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries past president Joseph Kanyekanye, said the company had remained closed for a long time because of lack of technical competences and a failure to do the simple things right.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
“We held a workshop on the challenges at Ziscosteel with the minister of industry and realised that it remains closed because of lack of technical competences in the country and also that people just failed to do the simple things right,” he told a meeting held at Kwekwe Polytechnic.
Kanyekanye said if New Zimsteel was to start operations it would reboot the economy and turnaround the fortunes of the National railways of Zimbabwe which will be a major transporter.
