The Portland Cement Zambia has remained as a topic of conflict in the past few months. With total shares being split up in 58% and 42%, the minority shareholders (the Ventriglia family) of the factory have unleashed their thirst for power by attacking the majority shareholders (Finsbury Investments).
On June 2 2015, the Ventriglia family executed their conspiracy by way of getting Dr. Rajan Mahtani, an integral part of Finsbury Investments, arrested on account of signature forgery. A case similar to this was raised in 2012, but with lack of evidence and a clear intent of defamation the case was ‘permanently closed’. However, with the influence of money the Ventriglia family was able to induce the media and corrupt government officials to support their cause.
It took only a matter of days for Dr. Rajan Mahtani to come out of jail, as once again, there were lack of evidences. But the impact of this incident has left the citizen of Zambia speechless. During the time of arrest, not even the President of Zambia came to support his own citizen, in spite of knowing the fact that a ‘permanently closed’ cannot be reopened until and unless mockery of the judicial system of Zambia was possible. Additionally, there were also instances where it was leaked that the Ventriglia family has funded news portals such as Zambia Reports and Lusaka Times to write against Dr. Mahtani such that people can be influenced easily.
In April 2015, the Ventriglia family has already taken over the Zambezi Portland Cement Factory through force and still continues to occupy the office. During this tenure there have been reports of employee mistreatment and money laundering.
Therefore, the question which remains to be answered is whether the government of Zambia will continue to Ventriglias to dominate the scenario with their corruption or will Dr. Rajan Mahtani find a helping hand to restore Portland Cement Zambia’s lost glory.