The Sunday News
IT is no secret that during its productive years, Kwekwe-based Ziscosteel was the fulcrum of Zimbabwe’s economy as it fed into many other companies along the chain of its production line.
As the pig iron was melted and purified into tonnes and tonnes of malleable steel, many other companies downstream and even upstream were at hand either supplying raw materials or using the finished steel to oil Zimbabwe’s industrial sector.
In a nutshell Ziscosteel had grown into some oasis for many companies – all converging on Kwekwe or at least at other centres that would have already quenched their business appetite at the company to shore up production.
Today companies such as the National Railways of Zimbabwe’s loss of business is partly because of the death of the steelmaker.
NRZ used to be a major business partner of Ziscosteel carrying iron ore and the coal used in blast furnaces.
The same company would be at hand railing many wagons with steel to various need centres across the country and even abroad.
Companies like Hwange were always guaranteed of coal and coke orders as the blast furnaces were major consumers of the products to keep the boilers running.
In Bulawayo companies such as Clay Products supplied refractory bricks needed in building and repair of the furnaces.
Companies like ZimChem in the Midlands were also getting the Bitumen to make tar as a by-product from the steel making process at Ziscosteel.
This just shows that for the past five years when Ziscosteel was offline, the whole economy was also sneezing after catching the cold coming from the steelmaker.
Workers too, were left stranded not only at Ziscosteel but many other companies whose operations were directly and indirectly linked to the giant company.
That is why the news of plans to revive Ziscosteel must have seen everyone that appreciates how the Zimbabwe economy was shaped salivating at the prospects of waking the giant that had blocked the path to economic prosperity.
Government and Indian conglomerate Essar Africa Holdings have now agreed to operationalise the company under the new name NewZimsteel after bottlenecks stalled the initial anticipated resumption following the signing of the deal during the inclusive Government era.
Industry and Commerce Minister Cde Mike Bimha said the revival would be done in two phases.
“As per original bid provisions, the initial phase of the project will involve the revival of NewZimSteel to a production capacity of 500 000 tonnes per annum within 24 months which will be increased to 1,2 million tonnes per annum in the second phase,” he said.
Essar Africa director Mr Firdhose Coovadia said the conglomerate would invest $650 million in the first phase which will also involve the setting up of a 600 megawatts power station.
The Indian company will own a 54 percent stake in the company, Government 36 percent while the remainder would be in the hands of the private sector.
As a show of seriousness, the company has started making plans to pay workers who had gone for years without getting salaries while modalities are being worked on to settle the company’s $450 million debt.
The tone from both parties is encouraging although ordinarily many people would have wanted to see the company back on line tomorrow rather than in two years.
There is no debate that the steelmaker is supposed to play a significant role towards helping the country achieve some of the targets prescribed in its blueprint – Zim Asset.
Twenty four months from today Zim Asset will be two-and-a-half years old and will be left with the same number of years before it expires.
It will then become an insurmountable task for many companies waiting to tap into the revival of Ziscosteel to push capacity to levels envisaged in the economic blueprint.
We know issues of investments are bigger and complicated than just the signing of papers as there is a lot of work to be done at the Kwekwe plant, but the majority of people would not mind seeing the parties speed up efforts to ensure that everything is back on line.
After all Zimbabweans have a high work ethic and once they take off then the country would expect a 24-hour effort on the project.
If the amounts promised by Essar Africa are there, let them be released and we want to see efforts translating from talk and papers to real tangible progress.
Nonetheless the time frame might seem longer but it is no doubt worth waiting for because once that first bar of steel starts coming out of NewZimSteel, then it will signal a new era towards a new industrial revolution.
Once many industries start feeding again from the steel maker then Zimbabwe can again grow into an industrial giant and regain its place in the sun.
