Lafarge ‘made deals with ISIS in Syria’

PARIS. — French cement maker Lafarge entered into deals with armed groups in Syria, including the Islamic State (IS) group, in order to protect its business interests in the country, French daily Le Monde reported on Tuesday.

According to the French newspaper, between 2013 and 2014 Lafarge paid taxes to IS group middlemen and negotiated safe passage for its trucks and employees in order to continue its operations in northern Syria.

Lafarge, the world’s leader in construction materials, did not respond to queries from AFP over the allegations, saying only that its “absolute priority has always been ensuring the safety and security of its staff”. At the heart of the “murky deals” alleged by Le Monde is a cement works that Lafarge bought in 2007 some 150 kilometres northeast of Aleppo.

The Jalabiya cement works went into operation in 2010, a year before the start of Syria’s ongoing civil war.

“Until 2013, production kept up despite the growing instability in the region due to the civil war,” the French daily wrote.

In 2013, the IS group — then known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — began taking control of towns and roads around the factory.

Le Monde reported it had seen emails sent by Lafarge managers in Syria “revealing arrangements that Lafarge made with the jihadist group to continue production until September 19, 2014”.

It was on this date that the IS group took over the site and Lafarge halted all activity.

In one case Lafarge — seeking access to its factory for workers and supplies — sent a man named Ahmad Jaloudi on a mission “to get permission from IS group to let employees past checkpoints”.

According to Le Monde, the letters show that Lafarge’s Paris headquarters was aware of the arrangements.

In another case a “pass stamped with an IS group stamp and endorsed by the NATIONAL Blood Service Zimbabwe ( NBSZ) will soon set up a distribution center in Matabeleland North to curtail blood shortages in the province following the closure of its Hwange branch in December last year.

NBSZ chief executive officer Mrs Lucy Marowa said this yesterday during a tour of NBSZ headquarters by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health.

Mrs Marowa said they were facing many challenges in keeping the Hwange clinic as it incurred more expenses than blood units per month.

“We faced some viability challenges and we had no option but to close the branch. However, we are trying to make some arrangements with Hwange Colliery Hospital to mitigate that,” she said.

“We have engaged the Hwange community so that we can find out how we can set up a distribution center at the Colliery or Victoria Falls hospital. The intension is to set up a place where we can simply send blood to and then hospitals can collect blood from there.”

Mrs Marowa said it is of importance that a country meets the required amount of blood as it is not safe to import.

“It is not safe for people to import blood from other countries as blood needs to be screened first hence incurring other expenses,” she said.

The chairperson of Parliamentary Portfolio committee, Dr Ruth Labode, said they were in the process of finding ways to make blood affordable to Zimbabweans as it is currently too expensive. — HR. (group’s) finance chief in the Aleppo region” proves the company had struck a deal with IS group to allow for free circulation of its goods, the newspaper reported. In order to keep making cement Lafarge bought licences from and paid taxes to IS group middle-men and oil traders, the newspaper alleged.

Lafarge — which in 2015 merged with Swiss cement maker Holcim — confirmed to AFP it had owned the Jalabiya GWANDA police have banned the movement of trucks carrying cattle during the night in an effort to fight stocktheft.

Gwanda has been a hot spot of cattle rustling and recently villagers in Matshetshe took the law into their own hands and burnt down three homesteads belonging to suspected cattle thieves.

The officer commanding Gwanda District, Chief Superintendent Enock Sibanda, last Friday told Sabona villagers, at a meeting where the police and Gwanda South MP Madodana Sibanda had gone to cool tempers, the ban would help in the fight against rustling.

The meeting was held at Enqameni.

“We have seen that cases of cattle rustling are increasing at an alarming level in the district. As police it’s our duty to protect farmers’ livestock and from now onwards no truck will be allowed to move cattle during the night from Gwanda district to any destination,” said Chief Supt Sibanda.

“Police will be on the lookout for any such activities during the night and mount roadblocks. Any truck which will be intercepted carrying cattle will first be taken to the police station for vetting before it’s allowed to proceed the next morning if everything is found to be in order,” he added.

He said last week they intercepted a truck which was carrying 30 beasts which had been allegedly stolen from Manama en-route to Sun yet Sen in Kezi. — HR. cement works “between 2010 and 2014”, but did not directly address the allegations.

“When fighting came closer to the factory, Lafarge’s absolute priority was ensuring the safety and security of its staff while the closure of the factory was being studied,” the company said.

IS group militants were driven out of the Jalabiya area by Kurdish forces in February 2015.

According to Le Monde, the site is now used as a base for US, French and British special forces that support the Kurds in their fight against the jihadists. — France24/AFP. LOCAL authorities have been urged to exempt elderly people in rural areas from paying levies as they are a vulnerable section of the community.

Mangwe MP, Cde Obedingwa Mguni, told councillors from his area during a meeting that a group of elderly people had approached him pleading to be exempted.

“I was recently approached by a group of elderly people and one of them is an 87-year-old woman. They said they were struggling to raise money to pay rates.

“Therefore there is a need for local authorities not only Mangwe but others as well to look into their council policy as collecting levies from old people is unconstitutional,” said Cde Mguni.

He said elderly people were considered vulnerable under the department of social services and were receiving assistance from the Government.

Cde Mguni who is also Home Affairs Deputy Minister said collection of levies from such people further defeated programmes being implemented by the Government on assisting the vulnerable.

“Eventually, there is no coordination within the Government because it ends up taking back from the people that it’s assisting,” he said.

Cde Mguni urged the local authority to resort to income generating projects as a way of generating revenue instead of relying on collections from homesteads.

Chief Hobodo from Mangwe District said the elderly from his area were relying on food handouts, yet they were expected to pay levies. — HR. .