Government has been accused of neglecting Air Zimbabwe
resulting in a high employee turnover rate coupled with a high skills
development cost at the airline, a report has revealed.
According to an exit report from the former board
chairperson Chipo Dyanda on the state of Air Zimbabwe, morale was low among
staff while government dilly-dallied with a legacy debt and recapitalisation
plan.
“Workers generally feel job insecurity due to lack of a
transparent communication system with them on the direction of the company and
its relationship with Zimbabwe Airways and Zimbabwe Aviation Leasing Company.
Therefore, they are always on the job hunt because of that insecurity,” Dyanda
wrote in her 12-page exit report.
Outgoing Transport minister Joram Gumbo dissolved the Air
Zimbabwe board recently in preparation for placing the parastatal on a
reconstruction order through an administrator.
The airline has been struggling to remain afloat due to a
legacy debt amounting to $341 million and what the former board chairperson
termed lack of support from the shareholder.
Dyanda said the decision to place the airline under an
administrator could be misplaced and was done in haste without taking due care
since Air Zimbabwe had the potential to “flourish” if government followed
through a recapitalisation plan set out by management and her team.
“The strategic turnaround plan indicates that it requires
$189 million over three years and not all at once. The important capital is the
short-term $44 million to operationalise the new business model since it
intends to reopen international destinations,” she wrote.
Dyanda listed what her team achieved throughout its tenure
(2016-2018), among which was the reduction of the workforce from 500 to 232 and
the retrenchment of all under-qualified or unqualified staff.
“The low salaries of pilots continue to be a source of
staff flight to greener pastures. Air Zimbabwe operates in a competitive
international environment and localised salaries continue to drain out the
staff after the airline has invested heavily in their training,” Dyanda said.
“Air Zimbabwe has become a training ground for other
airlines locally and internationally, yet the training weighs heavily financially
on the airline. In addition, expecting Air Zimbabwe to be efficient and
competitive in the international space is unrealistic considering its old
fleet. The airline needs to be re-equipped.”
She doubted the authenticity of the $341 million debt
saying an audit needed to be carried out as it was “wrongly bundled” together
with a legacy debt and inflated figures.
“A true picture of the nature of the debt is that of the
$341 million, 92,32% of it was local debt while only $26,182 (about 7,68%) is
foreign debt, and 77% of the local debt is inter-parastatal and government
through the ministry of Transport and Infrastructural development,” Dyanda
said.
Government last year established a separate airline,
Zimbabwe Airways, whose set-up was being spearheaded by Simba Chikore, a former
chief operating officer at Air Zimbabwe and former President Robert Mugabe’s
son-in-law.
The decision, according to Gumbo, was aimed at evading Air
Zimbabwe debts while at the same time it was an attempt to keep the country
represented in the skies.
The new airline is yet to fly as it has not yet got its
paperwork in order. Dyanda said government had let down Air Zimbabwe in its bid
for recapitalisation.
“The airline (Air Zimbabwe) was to be funded in two ways;
either shareholder recapitalises the airline from the fiscus or attracts
strategic partners. No funding was received from the fiscus, but instead, a new
airline was funded. Strategic partnerships that were received did not receive
attention either nor did the airline receive feedback from the shareholder.
This is a major obstacle to the implementation of the strategic turnaround
plan,” Dyanda said.
The former board chair stated that among the key efforts
made to revive the airline included proposals that required scrutiny and
implementation by government.
“The airline attracted viable proposals that required
further scrutiny and engagement. Some proposals included cash injection while
others wanted to bring equipment. One more wanted a marketing relationship in
Europe. These were forwarded to the ministry in 2017 and 2018,” Dyanda said.
Responding to these assertions, minister Gumbo told The
Standard that although he had not seen Dyanda’s exit report, issues that she
raised were not new.
“I share and appreciate the issues they are raising.
Critically we have to understand that Air Zimbabwe has had challenges piling up
for a long period of time,” Gumbo said.
“All the issues you are saying, as the ministry we have
raised them before. It is just that government does not have money to put in
and we also realised that Air Zimbabwe was fast turning into a bottomless pit.
I have explained the reason behind the establishment of Zimbabwe Airways, an
idea I believe we should support as a country.”
He said there was need to change the work culture and
attitude towards public enterprises.
“We need to adopt a profit-making mentality and not view these
public institutions as social clubs. We must all work for profitability and
increase productivity,” Gumbo said.
“I appreciate the efforts Dyanda and her team put in seeing
that Air Zimbabwe remained in the skies, but let us agree, its books are in a sorry
state. We need to work on that so that when we go to investors, we are not
exposed to manipulation.”
“I am still waiting for government to take over their debts
and I supported their plan with the hope that the legacy debt would be the
assumed by government,” Gumbo said.
“But as you know, the operations of government are guided
by the law. We are still waiting for that to happen. I have high respect for
the board and they did a great job. I don’t think it would be prudent to blame
the minister. Some of these things we have to follow government processes.”
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