eBusiness Weekly
Kudakwashe Mhundwa
HARARE – State-owned petroleum dealer, Petrotrade has selected a transitional advisor who will spearhead the company’s quest of securing a strategic partner to boost business operations, according to the company’s chief executive officer Godfrey Ncube.
Petrotrade commenced operations as a fully-fledged business entity after the unbundling of its forerunner, the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NocZim).
In a telephone interview Mr Ncube said the fuel dealer`s quest to secure a strategic partner is work in progress and they have so far identified a transitional advisor who will handle finer project details.
“In terms of securing a strategic partner its work in progress, we have selected the transitional advisor and are in the stage of getting into a contract with them,” said Mr Ncube.
He however refused to say who the transitional advisor was suggesting that they had not had alerted the party,
“I cannot share with you at the moment the name of the advisor because we have not yet notified them but we have done the selection process,” he said.
Petrotrade’s need to secure a strategic partner falls Government’s partial privatisation strategy.
Government plans to restructure State-owned enterprises (SOEs), within which 41 entities are lined-up for privatisation, departmentalisation and listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.
The restructuring, which targets to turn SOEs into profitable firms to avoid reliance on Government handouts for survival, is being done as part of efforts to achieve “Vision 2030”.
According to Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube, Government was spending about half a billion dollars supporting struggling SOEs and parastatals over the last two years, as the perennial loss-making entities continued to drain public funds.
The entities used to contribute 40 percent to the economy, but poor management, corruption and weak governance systems have seen them run down with contribution to the economy plummeting to just two percent.
A total 38 out of 93 State-owned enterprises audited in 2016 incurred a combined loss of $270 million as weak corporate governance practices and ineffective control mechanisms took their toll.
