ByTerrence Mawawa|Workers at Chisumbanje Ethanol company owned by President Robert Mugabe’s business partner Billy Rautenbach, have gone for 8 months without salaries and have had anti-riot police details deployed to crush dissent.
The ethanol plan’s business was granted exclusive state access after Rautenbach deceived government claiming he would provide electricity for the whole of Manicaland year in year out.
Workers at his ethanol plant say employees are passing out on duty due to hunger and efforts to resolve the matter have proved fruitless since the police “are constantly quashing” their protests.
“We have gone for 8 months without salaries and our efforts to engage the management have been ruthlessly thwarted by the police. There are police details who are monitoring the situation round the clock. We are only getting a paltry $ 70 each as part of a working allowance. Rautenbach is nowhere to be seen and we are getting agitated by the situation,” said an employee based at Chisumbanje plant.
The workers also said Rautenbach was riding on political immunity because of his closeness to Mugabe.
“We call upon the president to intervene in the situation before the whole thing gets out of hand . We are tired of working for nothing. In-fact we are generating a lot of money here but we are toiling for nothing ,” said another employee based at Middle Sabi ethanol plant.
Rautenbach is also one of Mugabe’s chief sponsors with reports saying he committed thousands of dollars towards the upcoming 21st February Movement bash.