Councillors had also demanded that the delegation visits a
similar project in Manicaland while a technical team had been lined up to visit
the United States of America (USA). Initially, the local authority had given
the greenlight that the company – MilkAfric – could do a demonstration at the
farms for one year, to show what they aimed to do before being awarded a lease
to take over operations.
However, according to a council report, councillors have
since reversed the decision and instead opted not to award MilkAfric with the
demonstration year-long lease saying the company had failed to prove to council
that it was capable of carrying out the project.
“Councillor Silas Chigora however, raised concern on the
report. He said that the Business and Investment Committee had agreed to invite
MilkAfric to do a demonstration on the 50 hectares of land. He recalled that
MilkAfric was the same company that wanted to lease the farms for the purposes
of establishing a dairy project. The Deputy Mayor (Clr Mlandu Ncube) said that
resolutions were made based on the demonstrations and presentation. He
concurred with Clr Chigora that the company had once made an application to do
another project at the farms. The company had promised to take the members of
the Business and Investment Committee to Manicaland and Botswana for a site
visit to have an appreciation of some of the projects they had undertaken. The
company had failed to prove to council that it was capable of carrying out the
project,” continues the report.
Sources close to the negotiations revealed that councillors
felt that the company wanted to be awarded the tender via the backdoor.
“This company is the one that made the promises to host
councillors and management in Botswana for a week. They also promised a trip to
a similar project in Manicaland and also, they committed to taking a technical
team to the US but now they are backtracking, therefore their capabilities are
questionable. As it stands with this one-year demonstration lease, they are
just doing a trial-and-error approach and it won’t be surprising that after the
lapse of the year they inform council that the project is not feasible, all we
are demanding is tangible proof of their past projects, we don’t want to face
the same scenario like we are facing at Egodini,” said the councillor.
According to a council confidential report, the company had
expressed interest in turning the farms into viable dairy fodder and crop
production farms.
“The representative from MilkAfric (Mr Matibe) explained
that the visit to Botswana had failed because council had brought forward a
total of 18 delegates to represent it for one week. It was not feasible for the
company to incur the costs without any knowledge of the way forward in terms of
partnering.
“The trip to Botswana was still on the table only if
council provided a smaller number of delegates to visit the site. The same
would apply to the visit to the United States. MilkAfric was also open to take
the committee to Manicaland to view a dairy farm that was almost similar to
what they intended to do at Aisleby and Goodhope farms,” reads the report.
For the visit to the United States, the company had offered
to take a small delegation for training Zimbabwean staff for the management of
the project once it took off, as they argued that if the local authority
shortened the possible Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) period before
management and competent people were in place, the project would collapse
within a year of the company handing over the project to council. Sunday News
0 comments:
Post a Comment