eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco), is looking for a new managing director to replace Pious Manamike who resigned about three months ago.
Cottco, the country’s largest cotton company, has since appointed a local consultancy firm to search for a new managing director.
Manamike, and former head of marketing, Maxmore Njanji, who also resigned are facing various allegations bordering on corruption.
While searching for the new managing director head of operations, Munyaradzi Chikasha, is the acting accounting officer.
Manamike and Njanji first appeared in court in June this year facing corruption charges mainly centered on conflict of interest for allegedly failing to declare their business interest to their principals.
They are accused of having used their trucks to ferry inputs for the Presidential Cotton Inputs Scheme, a programme which the company administers on behalf of the Government, without informing their principals.
They are denying the allegations.
A few weeks later, Manamike and Njanji, were arrested again alongside Gokwe Nembudziya Member of Parliament, Justice Wadyajena, on allegations of money laundering.
They are accused defrauding Cottco US$5 million through the fictitious purchase of bale tying wires. It is alleged that money was instead used to purchase 25 trucks.
Manamike joined Cottco in 2013 as the company secretary after the unbundling of Cottco and Seed-Co from AICO Holdings. Prior to the unbundling, he was the company secretary of AICO. He became Cottco acting managing director in 2014.
Manamike steered the company which saw the rebound in cotton production from 28 000 tonnes in 2014, the lowest output in nearly two decades, to 144 000 tonnes in the 2016/17 season.
Since the launch of the state-assisted scheme in 2014, production has been steadily going up with occasional dips in drought years.
The scheme has helped in the resuscitation of the cotton industry, which is a major source of employment for countryside farmers. Financially, cotton has been bringing in an average of US$70 million annually.
Earnings have grown from US$11 million in 2016 up to US$70 million last year with benefits having been accrued along the value chain and around the cotton production ecosystem.
