ALLAN SECCOMBE, Johannesburg | Wednesday
SOUTH Africa’s black cane farmers plan to make an offer for sugar firm Transvaal Suiker Beperk (TSB) following a failed bid by Tongaat-Hulett, a representative body said this week.
The KwaZulu-Natal Sugarcane Growers Association, representing some 45000 small-scale black growers, had indicated previously that it was interested in TSB, but was awaiting the outcome of the Tongaat offer, its chief executive Mandla Buthelezi said.
”We have set up a team that will look very seriously into the project now and then we will start negotiations,” said Buthelezi.
He said that if the association acquired TSB, it would be the first time that small-scale black farmers had held a real stake in the industry, dominated by three white-owned companies.
”We can never be part of the industry if we do not participate in the milling component where everything is happening…we will stay small for the rest of our lives,” Buthelezi said.
He said his seven-member team would take a couple of weeks to finalise a position.
Commenting on the TSB’s price tag, Buthelezi said, ”I can’t say that we will pay a billion rand, but the task team will look at it from the point of view of a cluster project and break it down and look at individual components to see what they are worth.”
He added that some members of his team were from the area around the TSB mills and estates in the eastern Mpumalanga province and knew its operations well.
The association would approach agencies, working with the government, for development grants and to secure soft loans.
”There are a number of companies that we have also approached and they are interested,” Buthelezi said, adding some of them were offshore.
”We are not saying we can become millers today, we need to be very careful in dealing with such issues and we will talk to the experts,” he added. – Reuters