'No amount of money can revive David Whitehead textiles'

Chegutu West legislator, Dexter Nduna has claimed that there is no amount of money which can revive the David Whitehead Textiles ubnless the company change its credit into equity.

Nduna made the remarks during oparliament seating in Harare.

"I touched on issues to do with the Distressed Industries and Marginalised Areas Fund (DIMAF) and no amount of it can resuscitate David Whitehead," he said.

"What David Whitehead needs to do now for the record, it needs to change its credit into equity. The majority of that credit is owed to the former workers. If you retrench a worker and you do not pay them, it means in essence they are still working. They are still active workers and to this end they are owed more than US $10 million as workers and former workers. So that credit of $20 million, 50% of it is owed to workers."

Nduna said he prays what needs to be done at David Whitehead, is it need to change that credit into equity and make the workers the majority shareholders by turning over that company to the rightful owners who are the workers, 20 000 households.

"I will give you a brief rundown on who is owed at David Whitehead - it is the workers $10 million; Parogate $5 million, utilities $2 million, that is the urban councils and ZESA $2 million. That will roughly bring it to about $20 million and we come here and make believe. We believe that David Whitehead can be resuscitated by $1.8 million - it will not," he said.

"I will tell you what a judicial manager is. A judicial manager is like a doctor, he can proffer a solution and medication - whether you resuscitate or not; that is no ndaba of his. He will still get paid for his services. This is what one Hofisi would have us believe. David Whitehead has gone through three judicial managers, Cecil Madondo, Militara and now the final judicial manager who is Hofisi."

Nduna said Hofisi is not a good enough judicial manager for David Whitehead because he is conflicted.

"He started as an accountant at David Whitehead, went on to be a partner as a judicial manager in the first judicial management and today he is the third and final judicial manager. We should open our eyes and see that this person is in it for self and selfish gains as opposed to the resuscitation of the community factory," he said.

"We are losing the future of this nation in general and the future of Chegutu, Gweru, and the future of Kadoma in particular. When they started liquidating the shares of David Whitehead, purportedly to one Toendepi who is on the run, one Chimanye started selling hosiery machines. As we speak, there are 15 hosiery machines that are being utilised by his wife behind Borrowdale today at the expense of the workers at David Whitehead."

Nduna said they need to reverse this situation by making sure that the wheels of justice turn and are oiled by this Parliament, because we are here to make laws for the good governance and order of society.

"So today I make a clarion call to us in this House to make sure that we resuscitate industry by nipping grand corruption in its bud. Here is grand corruption and it is glaring and it is time that we dealt with it in total. This $1.8 million that we are made to believe is going to resuscitate David Whitehead is in actual fact going to be the payment for the judicial manager's services," he said.

"As we speak, David Whitehead workers and former workers are being chased out of the real estate that David Whitehead owns so that the judicial manager can sell the houses, more than 120 employees so that he can get what he can, cans what he gets and moves off. Is this the type of industry that we want? How many investors are going to come in a situation which is riddled with such inconsistencies?" he added.