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Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE industrial lobby group, Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), says the closure of Warman Zimbabwe Limited due to ownership squabbles is regrettable and has detrimental effects on Zimbabwe’s import bill and operations of firms in the productive sectors.

Bulawayo-based Warman Zimbabwe, which is an engineering company under the Weir Group of South Africa, was the only company in the country that supplied components such as cover plate liners, flame plate liners and throat bushes for pumps in the mining sector.

The firm was critical to the engineering, agriculture, rubber and plastic sub-sectors supplying an assortment of spares.

Speaking by telephone, CZI national vice president, Mr Joseph Gunda, bemoaned the liquidation of Warman Zimbabwe saying this would have a negative bearing on Zimbabwe’s import bill since locals will resort to importing.

“From our standpoint, we bemoan the closure of companies like Warman Zimbabwe, which was a key supplier to the mining, engineering and agriculture sectors. Now it means our import bill is going to increase because we are going to import products that were produced by Warman Zimbabwe if we don’t have any replacement or any company that has actually started producing the same products locally,” he said.

Mr Gunda said he did not have details that led to the company winding up operations but there was ownership wrangles, which ended up spilling into the courts.

Early this month, Warman Zimbabwe issued a public notice advising that it was shutting down all its operations across the country following shareholders’ resolution.

“All creditors are advised to register all claims if you are owed by the above-mentioned company.

“This is done on or before the 12th of March 2021,” reads part of the notice.

According to a confidential document gleaned by this paper, Warman South Africa recently indicated that Warman Zimbabwe was involved in an ownership dispute with Stewart Dhliwayo.

“We are currently involved in a litigation process against Mr Stewart Dhliwayo after he illegally transferred shares of Warman Zimbabwe (Private) Limited to himself and others and attempted to appoint himself and others as directors of Warman Zimbabwe (Private) Limited,” said the sister company.

Mr Gunda said CZI as an industrial representative body would need to understand individual firms’ challenges that lead to company closures.

“Challenges at the moment are varying from one company to the other, but we have sectors within our BMO (Business Management Organisation), which look at the survival of each company in a particular sub-sector.

“Understanding those challenges will help us to see if there is a necessity for lobbying whatever the challenges they are facing,” he said.

Mr Gunda said in the past some companies closed down due to forex challenges but now his organisation had successfully lobbied for forex prioritisation to industry.