60 workers stranded as Choppies closes

THE forced closure of Choppies Supermarket from Gweru’s central business district (CBD) has left 60 workers jobless and crippled vendors who used to sell their wares by the shop’s entrance.

The retail operator’s branch was forced to shut down last Friday by the Sheriff of the High Court at the behest of the new owner of the shop who wanted to occupy it at number 78 Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa Street.

The abrupt eviction left consumers in shock as the retailer’s products were thrown out, forcing them to ferry all the goods to Mkoba 7 Shopping Centre where they have another branch.

Reports are that the forced eviction has resulted in the supermarket losing shop equipment such as fridges, cold rooms and merchandise worth thousands of United States dollars.

A Chronicle news crew visited the shop and found the new owner already demarcating the building amid indications that he wants to open a new shopping mall.

At the Mkoba branch, employees were busy going through the merchandise that was thrown outside, separating the damaged products and those that can still be salvaged.

Some of the perishable products such as tomatoes, and poultry products were being thrown into the dust bins.
Affected workers said that their jobs were hanging in the balance and could only hope to be relocated to other Choppies branches dotted around Zimbabwe.

“The Gweru CBD branch provided employment to over 60 workers who obviously have families that they look after. The closure of the shop has put our jobs on the line. We just hope and pray that we will all be absorbed by other branches,” said Ms Sithembile Chikumba who was a till operator.

Another employee said relocation meant transferring families, which was a hard decision.

“The employer is still sympathising with us but the fact is we can’t all be absorbed at the Mkoba branch. Remember the 60 of us were in two shifts working at the CBD branch and we are just too many. So, relocation is on the cards but it won’t be easy,” said the employee on condition of anonymity.

Vendors who used to sell their merchandise outside the shop said its closure has affected their business.

“We are just vendors but we have been coming here because clients going into Choppies were supporting us. From 2006, I have been a vendor selling my things on this pavement. Now it has been closed and they are talking of having a shopping mall for clothes.

“We are sad because the whole town is turning into shopping malls for clothes,” said Ms Moreblessing Njowa.
Choppies CBD branch manager Mr Nobert Dube said the eviction was done abruptly without any notice to the managers.

“We are here counting our losses following the closure of the supermarket by the Sheriff of the High Court on Friday. They started to break everything including five cold rooms, which cost a lot of money,” he said.

“They threw out groceries and everything including shelves onto the pavement. We had a lease that stretched to 2025 but we just heard that building was sold on the day of eviction.”

Mr Dube said most of the products were damaged in the process, adding that detergents were mixed with products such as mealie meal and flour making them hazardous substances.

“A lot of products were destroyed. Flour was mixed with surf and detergents making them extremely poisonous and harmful. So, we are forced to throw them away,” he said.

Mr Dube said the affected employees are likely to be relocated to other branches across the country.

One of the managers, Mr Bright Maramba, said the way the eviction was done was heartless.

“That was ruthless, all perishables were thrown outside, we lost a lot of products, our cold rooms worth thousands of dollars were destroyed,” he said.

“We have lost a lot of products, our documentation system was destroyed. We no longer have records of our operations as they were destroyed during eviction.

“If it was not for the tenacity of our workforce and security detail, all our products would have been looted by members of the public,” he said.

The Choppies CBD supermarket building was sold to Africa Flea Market Pvt Ltd, by the owner who had leased the building to Choppies for a period extending to 2025. No comment could be obtained from the old and new building owners.-chronicle