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Tinashe Makichi Business Reporter

Government is behind schedule in implementing ease of doing business reforms with only three months remaining before the gathering of data for the Doing Business Index report for 2018 which starts in February next year, the World Bank has said.Zimbabwe was recognised in the Doing Business 2017 report as a reformer in dealing with construction permits, registering property and getting credit.

Despite these reform efforts, Zimbabwe’s ranking in the doing business report of 2017 fell to 161 out of 190 economies from 157 out of 189 countries in 2016.

World Bank programme manager Daniel Kobina said the issue of rankings is relative and it does not necessarily mean that Zimbabwe did not reform but other countries could have performed better.

“Ease of doing business reforms must be done in a marathon way. I believe that Government sprinted on the rapid results initiative and now there is need for the implementation of those reforms laid out under the programme.

“It must be noted that a culture of reform must be incorporated into the National Policy first before doing anything else.

“It is not enough to just pass laws but laws must be implemented and there is not much time and Zimbabwe is only left with about five months before the compiling of the next report begins,” said Mr Kobina.

The Government has been making efforts to further improve the ease of doing business and aims to bring the country in the double digits eventually.

The Office of the President and Cabinet oversees the Doing Business reform initiative using a Rapid Results Initiative approach.

The Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet is the strategic sponsor of the Initiative.

Permanent Secretaries from more than 10 ministries are responsible for implementing measures outlined in the action plan for each of the Doing Business indicators.

Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet Dr Ray Ndlukula concurred with Mr Kobina as he stressed that there is not much time and technical working groups still have work to do.