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Senior Reporter
GOVERNMENT will soon carry out a forensic audit of the Cold Storage Company (CSC) to determine the firm’s assets, liabilities and management system to facilitate its turnaround, a Cabinet Minister said yesterday.
Once the country’s largest meat processor and marketer, the firm’s viability suffered a major setback when the European Union suspended beef imports from Zimbabwe in 2001 following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
“As Cabinet, we’re now looking at the CSC with a view to reforming it. In fact, CSC is just one of many State enterprises that we’re going to look at with a view of reforming them.
“And only last week, we took a position as Cabinet that we can’t throw money into CSC until we fully come to understand what has been going on at CSC.
“We want to have a comprehensive due diligence forensic audit of CSC so that we take informed decisions about the way forward on the company,” said Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa in an interview in Bulawayo.
He said the forensic audit would be done by accounting firms in the private sector so that nothing was swept under the carpet.
CSC needs over $10 million capital injection to get back on its feet and at its peak the company had an annual quota of beef exports to the EU of 9,100 tonnes.
It also had a $15 million revolving payment facility with the EU, under which it was paid in advance. The company used to earn the country at least $45m per year.
Minister Chinamasa said State enterprises used to contribute about 40 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Right now they’re all coming to Treasury to look for money to resuscitate their operations.”
Government has said it is determined to turnaround fortunes of State enterprises and parastatals to improve their service delivery.
Recently, the government approved a new programme to restructure, commercialise and privatise at least 10 State enterprises and has received interest from local and foreign investors.
Targeted firms include the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), National Railways of Zimbabwe, fixed phone company TelOne and mobile phone operator NetOne, AgriBank, Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (now NewZimsteel), power utility Zesa, and Air Zimbabwe.
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