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Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THE country’s biggest shoe manufacturer, Bata Shoe Company, is on course to complete the construction of a high school ahead of schools opening for the first term next year, a senior company official has said. Bata managing director, Ronjoy Sengputa, said construction of the school, Bata High School, is “progressing well”.

He said the ground breaking ceremony is scheduled for Friday at the construction site.
Construction of the school began last month and the project is expected to cost about $850,000 when complete.

“We have already started the construction of the school and it is progressing quite well. Barring any challenges we expect the project to be commissioned in three months time,” Sengputa said.

The project is an initiative of founder Thomas Bata’s family who encouraged the setting up of the school to celebrate the company’s 75 years of operating in Zimbabwe.

Thomas Bata Jnr is expected to commission the project on its completion next year.
The company already has a primary school which uses its trade name at Bata Shoe Company premises.
Sengputa said the school is part of the empowerment project the company is embarking on.

Apart from the school project, the company has set up Associated Business Units (ABUs) where local indigenous companies have been subcontracted by the shoe manufacturing giant to produce tennis shoes.

The company recently announced that it had doubled production at its tannery section which has seen the Gweru based company recruiting an additional 200 workers.

Bata’s viability has in the past been threatened by high leather costs as well as the influx of cheap foreign imports especially from the Far East.
At its peak the company used to employ over 5,000 workers and produced 2 million pairs of shoes annually.

The company now employs just over 1,500 workers and is operating at 83 percent capacity utilisation.