PTC closes shops, scraps Spar brand

People’ s Trading Centre has closed all its shops in the country following the closure of its head offices in Blantyre by sheriffs on instruction from Rab Processors and the strike by the company’ s staff. The sheriffs closed PTC head office because the company owns Rab Processors over K300 million while staff went on strike demanding their June salaries and…

People’s Trading Centre (PTC) has closed all its shops in the country following the closure of its head offices in Blantyre by sheriffs on instruction from Rab Processors and the strike by the company’s staff.

The sheriffs closed PTC head office because the company owns Rab Processors over K300 million while staff went on strike demanding their June salaries and that the sale of the company to Tafika Holdings from Press Corporation plc should be reversed among other demands.

According to Tafika Holdings Executive Chairperson Arson Malola, they will take advantage of the closure, which he described as temporal, to fast track the restructuring of the business to prepare for delivery of products.

Malola added that they have embarked on taking down the spar branding, in a move he described as bringing back the Peoples’ brand.

“At the end of the day we are committed to opening a restructured PTC that will better serve the needs of the consumers in these tough economic times by providing a good range of products at very competitive prices,” he said.

Apart from closing the head offices, sheriffs also closed the Ginnery Corner Spar shop in Blantyre which was the only shop opened in the city but by the time of closure it was conducting a clearance sale.

Malola described the seal of the Ginnery Corner shop as unfortunate, saying that the company may struggle to source revenue to pay the debt if the shop is not trading.

“I am very confident that that Ritz Attorneys at Law or Rab Processors will come to the party and sanity will prevail. It will be in their best interest to allow PTC to trade especially at Northgate otherwise the business will struggle to generate enough revenue to settle the very debt they are claiming,” he added.

Ritz Attorneys at Law, a law firm representing Rab Processors, through lawyer Lusungu Gondwe said in an interview that the only solution to reopening of the shop and the office is the payment of debt.

“There is no way the offices can be reopened without paying the debt therefore once our client has been given the money, the offices will be opened otherwise they will remain closed,” Gondwe said.

Tafika holdings bought PTC from PCL at K6 billion which was to be used for debt payment