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METALLON Gold Zimbabwe group chief executive Mr Allan Mashingaidze has resigned barely a year after assuming the hot seat.
Former CEO Mr Colleen Gura resigned last year and was succeeded by Mr Rob Wagner, who was in turn replaced by Mr Mashingaidze.In a telephone interview, Metallon head of corporate affairs Mr Zenzo Nsimbi confirmed the resignation. “Mr Mashingaidze is no longer with us, and his retirement was a mutual agreement between him and the company. He has been with the company for a very long time, therefore according to him it was high time to move on,” he said.
An official at the Metallon head office who requested anonymity said the resignation was precipitated by bad blood between Mr Mashingaidze and some members in the senior management.
“To say Mr Mashingaidze has resigned would be an understatement because from the relationship between him and some of the senior management, he was certainly forced out of the ship,” the official said.
However, Mr Nsimbi refuted the allegations saying these were baseless allegations because Mr Mashingaidze had served the company with diligence throughout his time with Metallon.
“The allegations are not true and for your own information the chief executive was doing well for the group and the allegation are just baseless,” he said.
“He also served as the vice president of the Chamber of Mines with expertise and so to say he was forced out is false. Sometimes after serving for such a long time, people decide to move on and that is what happened.”
He added that Mr Mashingaidze started working for Metallon when it was still Lonrho Mining Limited.
Several gold mining companies in the world have been heavily hit by the fall in gold prices, therefore Metallon group sometime this year embarked on refurbishing its structures at How Mine in a bid to boost production capacity.
How Mine was at one time the second largest gold producing mine in the world and Mr Nsimbi said after the refurbishment, they had managed to increase production capacity but declined to give figures.
“After refurbishing our structures we have managed to reach a new haulage capacity of moving ore from the ground to the surface and it’s unfortunate that we cannot furnish you with the figures pertaining to the increase in our capacity because that is (confidential) information. In addition to that we have also managed to meet (our) targets,” he said.
Efforts to establish how much money had been invested in the refurbishment of How Mine from Mr Nsimbi were fruitless.
Metallon operates five gold mines in Zimbabwe – Shamva, Redwing, Arcturus, Mazowe and How Mine. Metallon has not been fully operational underground at Redwing and Arcturus mines due to flooding and the fall in gold prices.
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