admin
ALL the 40 candidates who had applied for the position of general manager at the ailing parastatal National Railways of Zimbabwe FAILED to make the grade, an official has said.
This, experts said, once again raised questions on whether the country could be feeling the effects of the brain drain or simply that the company had gone down to the extent of failing to attract qualified personnel.
At the beginning of the year at least 40 prospective candidates had applied to head the parastatal and six were shortlisted by end of February but all of them failed to make the grade, board chairman Engineer Alvord Mabena confirmed.
In an interview with Sunday Business, Eng Mabena said the parastatal was set to engage a local employment agency to hunt for the right person for the job with special focus on the diaspora to entice some of the Zimbabweans outside the country who might be interested in the job.
“From the first attempt we made, we did not quite get suitable candidates. We have gone through the processes and we would like to test the market once again including the diaspora to find if there is any suitable Zimbabwean out there to fill the post,” said Eng Mabena.
He said the parastatal was now in a hurry to complete the process as it had managed to finalise positions at director level hence it was imperative to fill all vacant positions in order to stabilise the system.
“We managed to get two suitable candidates for the positions of director of operations and director of finance respectively. We want to fill all positions to stabilise the system so that when funding comes through we are ready to go,” he said.
Speaking on the type of person needed to head NRZ, Eng Mabena said they wanted “a robust person experienced in executive management with a good track record of turnaround strategies. The person has to be able to run a large company like NRZ and someone with a railway background will be preferable”.
The post of NRZ general manager fell vacant after Air Commodore Retired Mike Karakadzai died in August 2013 in a car accident.
Online Reporter