Portland Cement Zambia, a name which had given Zambia a hope in 2014-15 is now on the verge of meeting its end very soon. The credit for the misery goes to the existing management group of the factory, the Ventriglias. Over the past 10 months the Ventriglias have effortlessly managed to extort money from the factory cash box and are transferring the existing property of the factory to dummy companies. The result of their action is that the production in the factory has come to a complete halt and at the present, the revenue flow of the factory is almost zero.
The Italian Mafias made an infamous comeback in Zambia in 2015, under circumstances which still remain mysterious and since then, it has been a series of events which clearly reflects their greed for money and exploitation of the Zambian resources. On the other hand, they have also created dummy companies with a view to channelize the assets of the factory to themselves through an indirect route. The existing 43 trucks and a majority of real estate properties have been transferred to the dummy companies and now is the Portland Cement Zambia is wound up, the same properties would automatically be transferred to the Italian Mafias.
A worker of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory commented, “We were flourishing in 2014-15, but a sudden change in management has changed the fate of the company. The new management has simply ruined the development of this factory. Most of us have our salaries pending for months, but the same is always overlooked. That they do is take money from the factory cash box and deposit the same into their own private bank accounts. I won’t be shocked if I see a ‘CLOSED’ sign hanging here outside the gate in some days.” This is how the slow poison from the Italian Mafias are killing Zambezi Portland Cement.
