INSOLVENT flag carrier Air Zimbabwe is failing to attract
an investor, 11 months after government invited bids from potential suitors to
take over the embattled entity, the Zimbabwe Independent can report.
Grant Thornton, the administrator tasked with overseeing
the process of returning the debt-ridden Air Zimbabwe to profitability,
confirmed that no progress had been made in getting a new partner for the
airline.
Moreover, government has also failed to regularise Air
Zimbabwe’s US$381 million debt assumption plan which continues to weaken the
airline’s chances of courting new partners.
“I do not have an update. I have no progress to tell you.
If there is something, we will tell you,” assistant administrator Tinashe
Mawere this week told the Independent
“I do not want to comment any further on this in case I say
things that might result in another story.”
President Emmerson Mnangagwa appointed Patrick Chinamasa as
AirZim board chairperson in June. Government is yet to appoint a board, months
after former Transport minister Joram Gumbo fired the Chipo Dyanda-led board.
The airline attracted 10 potential investors this year, but
they have been spooked by the company’s legacy debts.
Grant Thornton has previously insisted that debt assumption
would boost the company’s turnaround strategy as most investors were demanding
a clean balance sheet.
The airline has been engaging the Ministry of Finance to
finalise the debt assumption process which has stalled the process of finding a
new partner.
Air Zimbabwe administrator Reggie Saruchera in June said
the airline’s debt takeover had been approved by cabinet long back, although
there was no movement in that regard.
“The debt issue had already been approved in 2012, but
nothing has happened since then. We have gone back to government and said,
‘cabinet, please approve the debt takeover so that the reconstruction process
can begin in earnest’,” Saruchera said then.
In November last year, AirZim urged interested parties to
invest in the moribund airline before a crunch meeting with creditors who
demanded prompt payment. Before the company was placed under reconstruction
last year, creditors including former employees, airlines, insurance companies
and other service providers had been pushing for legal action against the
airline.
Reconstruction cushions the troubled airline from litigious
creditors seeking to attach property. AirZim has is in the past indicated that
its defunct aircraft will be auctioned to service part of the debt.
Of the US$381 million debt, US$30 million is owed to
foreign creditors, while US$292 million is government-to-government debt.
Zimbabwe Independent
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