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Yoliswa Dube recently in Redcliff
WHERE money to pay utility bills or school fees, let alone the next meal, will come from is a constant headache.
Pain because there is no reliable or constant source of income except for handouts from relatives, friends and neighbours.
Uncertainty, desperation, hunger and anxiety are all they know how to feel and feel very well.

Everyday is a struggle.
Unlike birds of the sky which worry for nothing, Ziscosteel workers and their families in Torwood Township, Redcliff, live in constant disquiet over what tomorrow holds amid reports that the steel making giant which came to its knees in 2008 has once again postponed re-opening.

Jeriphanos Mazarire, a worker at Ziscosteel, is one of the many people in Torwood Township living from hand to mouth.
“I am destitute. I never have money to buy food for my family unless a relative spares me a few dollars here and there. I no longer pay for electricity or water because I don’t have the money. As it is, my water has since been disconnected, I have to fetch some at a nearby borehole,” he said.

Mazarire said he had no means of paying for his children’s school fees.
“Right now I have a pending lawsuit for $75 with one of the schools after I failed to clear a debt last year. Our children are not sent away for failure to pay school fees but the debt continues to accumulate and we have no means of getting the money as long as Ziscosteel is not operational,” he said.

Despite the fact that they have not been paid for over five years now, Ziscosteel workers are still expected to report for work every day, from 7AM to 4PM, failure to which one faces disciplinary action.

They turn up for work simply to beautify the plant yet their families are constantly famished, desperate and uncertain of what tomorrow holds.
Depressing aptly describes the atmosphere and lifestyle these people are leading.

Despite the deceiving leafy trees and attractive dense bushes reminiscent of the Garden of Eden on either side of the road leading to Torwood Township, life there is comparable to the very hot and arid Sahara desert; just dry and fruitless.

The gigantic Ziscosteel plant just sits there.
As a result, Redcliff has become a ghost town as most infrastructure including a hospital are no longer functional.

“Everyday, I hope that work at the plant resumes so that I can earn some money and improve my lifestyle. It pains me that I am expected to go to work everyday even though I am not getting any money. If I don’t go to work, I might be fired,” said Mazarire.

Another Ziscosteel worker, Samuel Mumvuri,  who said the burden he has been carrying on his shoulders for the last couple of years was now unbearable, said management at the steel making giant had not been openly communicating the state of affairs at the plant.

“As workers we don’t really know where the problem is. We just hope things work out. Life has been so tough and we have to heavily rely on our relatives to help us out.

“I have a lot of debt. I have two children of primary school going age and I can’t even afford their school fees of $40 each,” said Mumvuri.
He said workers at the plant receive $50 sporadically, with the last payment having been made on December 23, last year.

“We no longer have a set pay day. We are just given $50 after about four months and that money just buys mealie-meal and a few other things. How can one live on $50 for over three months?” he said.

The whole of Torwood Township depends on income generated at Ziscosteel such that its failure to resume operations has been detrimental to the functioning of other facilities.

However, despite all these challenges, people have not lost the will to live but have turned to religion for salvation.
“Torarama nenyasha dzaMwari nerudo rwake. Hukuru hwake huri kuonekwa muhupenyu hwedu (We are living by the grace of God and we continue to see His goodness in our lives),” said Jane Dzikiti, whose husband is an employee at Ziscosteel.

She said despite not having a regular income in the home, they had been surviving, somehow.
“We don’t even plan ahead. If I get $3,50 I buy 5kgs of mealie-meal, if I get $7, I buy 10kgs. We have since learnt to live as one family such that whoever comes asking for something, I am ready to share because I know I might need something from them as well.

“You can’t even run a business here because no one has the money to buy,” she said.
Dzikiti bemoaned the accumulation of debt saying she owed her child’s school $300.

“I have sleepless nights over school fees because there is nowhere that money is going to come from. Even after completing their ‘O’ or ‘A’ levels, these children are stranded because their results are withheld for failure to clear arrears. At the end of the day, they rush into marriage because their lives would have reached a dead end. As we speak, my daughter finished her ‘O’ levels in 2009 but she has not collected her results since then because of arrears at the school. She ended up getting married at a very tender age,” she said.

It was so easy to be identified as a visitor in this close knit community with passersby inquiring from a stone’s throw away if aid or sponsorship had come to the area.
“Toda kuzivawo kuti kuZisco(steel) kwaita here kana kuti mauya ne sponsorship dzevana (We want to know if Ziscosteel has resumed operations or have you brought sponsorship),” they shouted from a distance. This signified desperation for help or restoration of business at the plant.

An oven patcher at the factory who spoke on condition of anonymity said he had not been paying rent for the past two years and was facing accommodation challenges.

“Because we never have money to pay for anything, when leaving our lodgings moving to the next, we are asked to leave behind a bed or a fridge to compensate for the landlords’ rent money which we would have failed to pay.

“We continue to go to work everyday yet we don’t know what is going to become of us. We can’t even leave work because that would mean leaving with absolutely nothing after investing so much in the company over so many years,” he said.

The oven patcher said it was sad that Ziscosteel workers were being forced to work despite the fact that they cannot afford to feed themselves.
“Some of these men go for three or four days without having a decent meal and end up collapsing at work yet they are still expected to show up for duty,” he said.

Years of mismanagement and neglect took their toll on Ziscosteel, now NewZim Steel, which was a strategic company to the country’s economy employing over 3,000 workers.

It used to produce thousands of tonnes of steel annually for domestic use and export markets. Ziscosteel was also strategic because many downstream industries benefited from it.

Government resolved to swap 54 percent of its shareholding in the parastatal for a $340 million foreign and domestic debt takeover by a Mauritian company, Essar Africa Holdings.

However, resumption of operations at NewZim Steel is likely to take longer than expected amid indications the firm has to build three new plants before normal work starts.

Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha said because of the state of the equipment at NewZim Steel, there would be construction of at least three new plants alongside what is already there.

“It’s no longer an issue of rehabilitation but more of constructing certain new plants and that entails a lot of work in terms of planning and making orders for the new equipment.”

He said it would take long to buy new equipment for the three plants adding that they were expecting the Essar Holdings vice president to visit Zimbabwe for the signing of the sealing of the deal.

Minister Bimha said the timeframe for resumption of operations could only be determined after getting the technical input of what would be required.
Until then, the struggle continues.