The ManicaPost
Ray Bande Senior Reporter
MORE than 200 workers have been laid off by ethanol producing concern Greenfuel in Chisumbanje under Chipinge district.
The workers, who were verbally informed about termination of contracts, said they were barred from getting audience from the management let alone visit company premises.
When The Manica Post visited the area on Sunday, there was little activity at the plant and the termination of workers’ contracts was on evryone’s lips around Checheche Township.
Those interviewed by this newspaper said they were in a quandary and others were on the verge of being evicted from houses they were staying owing to nonpayment of rentals.
They said they were not aware whether the company would pay them what it owed them. Obey Siduna, who worked for Greenfuel as a driver since 2010, said they were only picked during a morning parade and told not to report for duty anymore.
“We were on a morning parade when we were only picked and told not to report for duty. They only told us the company would inform us when it would need our services but for the meantime we should just leave.
“The most painful thing is that they did not even give us a notice. We were just told to leave there and then. They also never told us when they will pay us what they owe us,” he said.
An irrigator in the Greenfuel sugarcane fields Richman Sithole said the company also did not pay them their leave days.
“It is sad that we are now being treated like this after serving the company for quite some time. As we speak, we have not been paid our leave days and yet they have the audacity to terminate our contacts abruptly. We feel hard done.
“Personally, I have been given a notice of eviction and I am not sure how I will travel back home given the distance and the fact that I do not have money on me at all,” he said.
Repeated efforts to get an official comment from Greenfuel were fruitless after the human resources manager Mr Dean Chikukwa referred all questions to his superior, the director of operations and security Mr Robson Matonhodze (Retired Colonel).
Mr Matonhodze referred The Manica Post to the company’s legal advisors who could not provide the comment before the paper went to print.
Endorsed as a national project by Government, Greenfuel has a modern plant that uses the latest technology to produce high-grade anhydrous ethanol.
According to the Greenfuel website, there are currently 6 000 hectares of sugarcane planted within the Chisumbanje Estate where the area is flat with very gentle basalt plain slopes offering a natural network of drainage lines, forming the largest single tract of relatively deep basalt-derived soils in Zimbabwe, extending over 40,000 hectares.
Greenfuel also runs the Middle Sabi Estate that is located 80km from Chisumbanje and there are currently 3 500 hectares of sugarcane planted there.
