The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Friday, February 5, 1993 — Aberfoyle Holdings, the troubled British company which owned the palm oil estate at Mwenezi, has sold its assets in Zimbabwe to Cluff Resources which takes over when all legal technicalities have been ironed out.

Cluff Resources, another British company which owns several mines in Zimbabwe, is expected to announce shortly what it intends to grow on the vast estate, which has been lying almost fallow since 1988 when the Mwenezi Development Corporation started laying infrastructure for a giant irrigation project.

Although it was not immediately clear how much is to change hands, authoritative sources on Tuesday said Aberfoyle decided to sell after failing to lure the Government into a partnership in the venture which was billed to create hundreds of jobs in downstream industries.

The Mwenezi Development Corporation — which administered the estate for Aberfoyle and the Chiredzi Research Station have in the last five years been conducting experiments to find out whether palm oil, which does well in hot and humid temperatures, could be grown on a commercial scale in the Lowveld.

Experts said the crop had done well at Chiredzi amid growing optimism that the palm oil crop at the Aberfoyle plantation, sown some five years ago, would do just as well. In the meantime, the MDC has been growing seed cane at Mwenezi for droughtravaged sugar companies in Chiredzi while looking into the possibility of going into sugar-farming itself. Sugar cane is cheaper and quicker than palm oil to grow.

Mr Algy Cluff, the chairman of Cluff Resources, on Tuesday said “proper consideration” would be needed before a decision was made on whether to press ahead with plans to grow palm oil or drop it altogether.