Platinum group metals (PGMs) miner Zimplats CEO Alexander Mhembere is confident about the company’s ability to become cash-generative in the next financial year, which starts in July, despite the tough political and economic landscape of Zimbabwe and general platinum group metal (PGM) market challenges brought on by low prices.
Mining Weekly quoted the Zimplats leader as saying at the PGMs Industry Day, in Johannesburg, last week that even amid the current downturn in PGM prices, the company would be striving to maintain the bulk of its workforce and would not be hasty in “pulling the lever” on downsizing initiatives.
"The lever of reducing people is not the only lever that can sustain the business. We still want to produce the same number of ounces. So we do not change the production profile, but we do play the levers along the value chain,” he said.
“We focus on cost management. We focus on labour rationalisation. We focus on productivity improvement more than anything else, and that gives us the leverage.”
Mhembere acknowledged that there would need to be some adjustments made, although they would be kept to a minimum.
However, the company had been making adjustments to its workforce prior to the market becoming more difficult.
"We have been systematically reducing our headcount before we actually got to the strong headwinds of now, and through the current headwinds, we are only going to reduce our people by 1% of our total labour complement of about 8 000 people,” he said.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
