The Financial Gazette

REDCLIFF — Council and New Zimbabwe Steel are headed for collision over an unpaid US$8 million water bill owed by the giant steelmaker.
The bill was inherited by the new owners of New Zimbabwe Steel when they acquired the former Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO) in a multi-million dollar deal.
Indian conglomerate, Essar Holdings, acquired ZISCO last year after the parastatal ceased operations due to mounting operational challenges.
Essar subsequently inherited all the company’s debts including the council debt, which it promised to settle within three months.
Council has now grown impatient with the steelmaker, 10 months after the Indian firm assumed control.
A meeting to discuss the impasse was abruptly cancelled last week and has been rescheduled for next week.
Kwekwe mayor, Shadreck Tobaiwa, said should the meeting fail to yield any positive result, the local authority would be left with no option but to seek legal action to recover the money.
“. . . We expect New Zimbabwe Steel to come up with a concrete position failure of which we will institute legal action against them to recover the money,” Tobaiwa said. “We now also want a situation whereby we supply the company with its water needs and we directly bill Redcliff residents through Redcliff Council to avoid mounting bills as is currently the case,” he added.
Efforts to get comment from New Zimbabwe Steel were futile. — Own Correspondent.