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At least 700 of the affected workers have since been put on forced leave since February.

The ethanol producing company is a joint venture between Green Fuel, the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority, Rating Investments and Macdom Investments.

About 10 percent of the ethanol produced by Green Fuel is blended with petrol to produce fuel that is now known on the market as E10.

The company last week recalled a few of the 700 employees on forced leave for maintenance work, but they will go back home next week.

Green Fuel employs about 4 500 workers, some of which work in the plant, while others are at the sugarcane estates that supply the raw material.

The company’s general manager, Mr Graeme Smith, said the workers were being paid while on leave.

“We basically shut down the plant on February 6 and send all the 700 employees on leave,” said Mr Smith.

“We restarted the plant last week to keep the machine in shape and to keep our staff motivated, but we will be closing again on May 6.”

Mr Smith said they asked for more funds from their investors to cater for the upkeep of the workers.

He said they were facing challenges with some big oil companies that were only selling the at a few of their garages.

Mr Smith said they were still lobbying Government to put in place legislation that compels all oil companies to blend their fuel with locally produced ethanol.

He said the legislation will not only benefit Green Fuel but any other company that will venture into ethanol business.

Mr Smith said although some officials in Government were saying they were free to export their ethanol the move might be costly to the country.

He said if they exported, the same product will be blended outside and brought back into the country at a much higher price. Mr Smith said if Government put in place mandatory blending, it could save US$250 million annually.

He said Green Fuel had the capacity to produce more ethanol to make E20, which will make fuel cheaper by at least 10 cents and enable Government to save US$500 million annually.

The E20 fuel will have 20 percent ethanol blended with petrol.

Mr Smith said they had already invested US$180 million in the project and by 2020 they will have invested US$650 million with a staff complement of 20 000 people.

Vice chairman of the workers’ committee at Green Fuel Mr Kokanayi Mapungwana urged Government to expedite the legislative processes for the benefit of workers.

“If there is anything that needs to be done by Government, we are urging them to do that expeditiously,” he said.

“We have families to look after and we can only do that if we are employed.”

A local traditional leader Mr Matambudziko Machona, said the Green Fuel Project was a positive initiative for the country.

He said it was unfortunate that Green Fuel was now reneging on some of its promises to the local people.

Mr Machona said Green Fuel had promised to build dams for irrigation, but the only dam built was now used to supply water to their plant.

He said that Green Fuel had also promised to employ local people for general hand duties.

Mr Machona said most of the people who were now employed by Green Fuel were not from Chisumbanje.

Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma, recently said Green Fuel was free to export its ethanol.

Arda chairman, Mr Basil Nyabadza, said the ethanol project was done under the principle of the Public Private Partnership as Build Operate and Transfer project.

He said discussions were, however, underway to align it inline with the country’s indigenisation laws.

“We now have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which is guiding us in these negotiations.

“Remember that when this project started there was no indigenisation and we are now discussing to make it a joint venture project between Government and the investors and not a BOT,” he said.