Industrial revival vital key in economic resuscitation
President Mnangagwa

President Mnangagwa

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu Correspondent
THERE has been a great deal of excitement about Zimbabwe reviving its national economy following, first, the inauguration of Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa as Robert Mugabe’s successor on November 24, 2017, and second, after the presentation of the Budget by Finance Minister, Cde Patrick Chinamasa.

It is the general national feeling that the pre-Mnangagwa administration was highly regimented, corrupt, uncommunicative and anti-investors. The current popular sentiment is that President Mnangagwa’s administration should be given sufficient time to generate and implement its own economic and social policies which will, hopefully, rectify the negative results of its predecessor.

One place that is an unfortunate victim of Cde Mugabe’s poor socio-economic policies and practices is Bulawayo, a city which was an industrial hub many years earlier until about 10 years after Zimbabwe’s independence when most of its former factories became empty shells.

There is a serious hope that industrial investors will return to the city, and unemployment will be drastically reduced. Without looking into the causes of Zimbabwe’s economic decline, it is certainly helpful to know and understand the factors that are vital to industrialisation in any society and at all times.

There are at least six such factors or requisites, in fact: a market for what will be produced or generated, manpower and management to make or generate products or services to distribute them, material with which to make the products or to generate the services, adequate money (capital), and last but certainly not the least, motivation.

An investor needs to be assured of the availability of a highly motivated pool of workers (manpower) before he or she ploughs his or her money into a project.

Some communities have a very poor work culture so that there are cases of foreign investors who have had to recruit workers elsewhere rather than employ indigenous people. Zimbabweans, most fortunately, are globally famous for being quite industrious, a very useful strength most necessary for economic development.

Management personnel have got to be professionally qualified, or at least they must be very much functionally literate for them to play their role efficiently, which is a stewardship position in relationship to the ownership of the enterprises of which they are employees.

Zimbabwe has thousands of such people most of whom are currently walking the country’s roads and streets looking for employment. What with the country’s 12 universities, six polytechnics plus a large number of private colleges, which churn out thousands of management professionals annually.

Zimbabwe does not lack raw materials that are usable in various manufacturing lines, especially the food-canning sector because of the country’s highly productive agricultural industry.

It has a variety of timber trees including mukwa and other hard wood, like teak. The furniture manufacturing sector is a very financially rewarding undertaking in Zimbabwe.

Botswana, Malawi and Mozambique are easily accessible and most reliable furniture markets because they do not have timber, a raw material that Zimbabwe has in large quantities.

In addition to the three mentioned countries, two of which, Botswana and Mozambique, have common borders with Zimbabwe, the country is a member of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), comprising 15 states, eight of which import most of their food.

Zimbabwe is an agriculture country with several large dams that were created primarily for irrigation. The country’s soils and climatic conditions are highly suitable for various tropical and sub-tropical crops and fruits.

Some of those fruits, including mangoes, can be canned for export. Other types of fruits can be exported fresh to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Angola. Investment by Zimbabweans is an aspect of indigenisation, of course. However, the country’s precarious financial situation militates against many local people aspiring to participate in the national economic development.

Money is, of course, an essential requirement in industrialisation. It is needed for the purchasing of land on which factories or whatever else can be built. It is required for shop rentals, for the procurement of equipment and for its installation, for the purchasing of whatever material is to be used.

The current financial situation in Zimbabwe does not augur well for industrial development of national economic revival. Calls for Zimbabwe to become a member of the rand economic area have been treated very lightly. It has been said that if we adopted the rand as our other currency we would become a colony of South Africa.

That is not true in that Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia use the rand in addition to their own local currencies, but they are not colonies of South Africa. From 2009 until quite recently, Zimbabwe used predominantly the United States dollar, but remained as sovereign as ever it was. We still use the US dollar.

Whenever we talk about or against externalisation of money, we should remember that it is done by taking that money in the form of mostly US dollars. It is unrealistic to discuss Zimbabwe’s economic revival without discussing the need for the country to have a national currency to use in such a process.

Since most of our exports are to South Africa, and most of our imports are from South Africa, it would make a great deal of practical economic sense for Zimbabwe to adopt the rand as its currency.

We now look at motivation as one of the economic revival factors. Motivation does not concern only workers, but also investors. A community or nation with a strong investment culture develops much more and faster economically than one that deeply fears to take risks with its monetary assets.

That is what the English mean by saying: “Nothing venture, nothing win”, an optimistic adage, which some English students quote as: “Nothing venture, nothing lose”, a pessimistic way of saying exactly the same thing. The former saying is positive, and represents success and hope, but the latter is negative and expresses failure.

In global economic history, the Jews were and are still associated with economic adventures, risks and, mostly, success because they take investment risks in virtually every economic activity, even to the extent of making their desert agriculturally productive and habitable. They are now reported to be investing in undertakings and equipment that can draw water from rocks!

Zimbabweans, especially those in the Diaspora, could be well advised to invest back home as they are much more likely to return home sooner or later than to end up in the various foreign countries where there are now living.

This article first appeared in Sunday News.

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