The saga involving Nestle’s cancellation of a contract to buy milk from President Robert Mugabe’s wife has taken a new twist as a Zimbabwean black economic empowerment group launches a campaign to force the Swiss-based food giant Nestle to dispose of its local subsidiary to local businesspersons.
The pro-Mugabe Affirmative Action Group (AAG) described as “unacceptable” Nestle’s decision last month to cancel a contract under which it was the preferred buyer of milk from a farm owned by Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe.
The Swiss food giant stopped buying milk from Mugabe’s Gushungo Dairy Estate in September following an international outcry and threats for a worldwide boycott of its products for allegedly supporting the Zimbabwean leader who is accused of human rights abuses against his people.
AAG secretary general Tafadzwa Musarara said Nestle should reverse its decision to cancel the Mugabe contract or face the risk of having its local subsidiary taken over by black business people.
“We are demanding that with immediate effect Nestle must be indigenised,” said the AAG spokesman who also accused the Swiss-based company of complicity in a Western scheme to illegally remove Mugabe from power.
The AAG statement came just a week after a group of youths from Mugabe’s ZANU PF party allegedly drove a tanker laden with milk from Gushungo farm to Nestle’s Harare subsidiary where they threatened officials to buy the milk.
Source African Press Agency
