HCCL plans to wean off non-core activities Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL)
Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL)

Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL)

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
GOVERNMENT has hinted on plans to wean off non-core activities from Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) as part of measures to rescuscitate the ailing firm.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said this while responding to questions in the Senate recently.

He said despite going through financial difficulties for many years with no production taking place, HCCL was running sub-economic activities that were not core to its coal mining operations. “One of the big challenges at Hwange Colliery is that the company has moved away from its core business. Its core business is to mine coal as opposed to providing accommodation, water and sewer reticulation services for about 6 000 people,” said the minister.

Cde Chinamasa said Government wants the company to surrender the provision of municipal services to a local authority. “The company has gone through financial difficulties for many years and as such has not been able to pay its workers for three to four years,” he said.

Cde Chinamasa said the challenges at the Colliery were a legacy problem which has seen the company over-employing because it has not been able to take the necessary decisions to retrench.

Minister Chinamasa said HCCL has carried the burden of employing excess workers making it unviable, a burden it may never resolve unless it cuts down the number of employees.

In October last year, the colliery introduced short time work arrangements as part of “cost cutting” measures, which the firm’s management said was anchored on a comprehensive job evaluation and grading exercise that had been necessitated by the need to rationalise the cost structure.

@okazunga

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