Jaggers workers send SOS

the firm-under provisional liquidation Mr Cecil Muderede has dumped them.
AAG has undertaken to help the 712 workers to identify a potential investor to inject fresh capital and revive operations.
The workers were given shares in the company before Mr Muderede took over in April last year.

But they have approached AAG in desperation, as it emerged they had gone 10 months without pay and were uncertain about their future.
Yesterday, it turned out the workers were now owed over US$2 million in salaries, allowances and pensions not remitted to insurance giant Old Mutual.
The future looked even gloomier last month after Mr Muderede gave owners of properties from which Jaggers operated permission to repossess their buildings after June 30 if he failed to settle outstanding rentals.
No explanation was given to the workers.

Efforts to get comment from Mr Mudere-de were fruitless, as his mobile phone was not reachable.
Jaggers, apart from its closed Msasa and Willovale branches, operates 63 branches countrywide under the Jaggers and Friendly Supermarkets trademarks.
But most of its outlets, except Jaggers Bindura, Jaggers Kariba and Friendly Supermarkets (Bindura), were rented.

Jaggers’ only other properties included six Harare houses occupied by managers and chalets in Nyanga.
AAG executive director Dr Davis Gomo confirmed holding meetings with the Jaggers’ workers and said their situation was dire and required urgent reaction.
“We will try to help the workers identify prospective investors into Jaggers,” he said.

“That is the only way it can work and nothing else.”
“The other alternative would have been for Government to bail them out and save jobs. But it has enough on its hands already as regards funding.”
He said some of the firm’s branches had closed down while the operational ones had very minimal stock due to serious financial problems.

Dr Gomo said the workers claimed Ja-ggers suffered from mismanagement, as senior managers used personal companies to supply the group with goods at exorbitant prices. There was also financial deficiencies inherited from previous owners, he said.
The switch to multicurrency in 2009 worsened the situation, as most companies could not secure funding to recapitalise operations after a decade of distress.

The workers were also allocated shares before Metcash of South Africa sold the company to Mr Muderede. But none of them were given share certificates.
Mr Muderede has allegedly dumped the workers, and, at the same time, reportedly frustrated local investors who had shown interest in reviving the retail group.
Interfin Financial Services, Meikles Limited and Delta – which aimed to convert its debt into equity – had reportedly shown interest in reviving Jaggers.

These potential investors would have partnered to mobilise the estimated US$40 million required to breathe a new lease of life into the company, analysts said.
But the prospective Good Samaritans pulled out after Mr Muderede flexed his muscles, as the owner, saying he had secured an investor, understood to be Metropolitan Bank.
But the bank seemed to develop cold feet after realising Mr Muderede had understated the size of his firm. This meant that the US$5 million the bank wanted to inject would not be enough to revive Jaggers.

Attempts to invite prospective investors who had initially shown interest were frustrated after Mr Muderede allegedly said he was working with the Reserve Bank to enable him to bring into the country US$35 million which he had in Singapore.