Trucking contractor reels from BCL closure

Ryder Gabathuse | Friday October 21, 2016 16:40

Ihawu group compliance and development manager, Judith Moswela described the effect of the BCL Group mines closure on their company as humongous.

She was adamant that the current trading conditions would leave any company that dealt with the closed mining houses with no option but to lay-off workers.

“The decision to close both TNMC and BCL mines was so abrupt that it never gave us a breather,” she told BusinessWeek, adding that they also understand the implications of a liquidation process.

Most worriedly, their trucks are parked at the Dumela Industrial site premises without jobs, which she said was hitting very hard on their coffers.

“It’s going to be a problem to repay the bank loans for the trucks because we purchased them through the bank,” said Moswela,

She described the situation at her company right now as “bleak.”

An employee of Ihawu who spoke to BusinessWeek on condition of anonymity revealed that his future with his company was gloomy as there was nothing going on at the moment.

“Our fingers are crossed as we expect to receive the bad news anytime soon about the state of our jobs,” decried a young man whose home village is in the proximity of the city of Francistown.

Infact, the bad news of the impending job cuts is inevitable as they can all see the situation at Ihawu premises where trucks are duly parked with no jobs.

“It’s inevitable that we are going to lose our jobs and my worry is that the year is also coming to its end. How am I going to survive without a job,” wondered the youthful truck driver.

Besides transportation of ore between the TNMC’s Phoenix and the BCL smelter, Ihawu collected a by-product from the TNMC for further crushing into aggregate - a form of quarry stones.

The young man is devastated that both the primary and secondary businesses that sustained Ihawu especially in so far as the mining engagement was involved in, have all gone up in smoke.

Depending on the availability of the ore concentrate from Tati Mine, Ihawu used to pull about 20 truck loads in a day before it dropped to 10 loads. Before the news of  mine closure, Ihawu was pulling about five truck loads per day.

He said the nature of their business was such that they purely depended upon the availability of ore concentrate at the mine.