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The Book of African Records, which collects and documents African records, is set to publish a list of what it calls “Zimbabwe’s 50 Most Historical Companies and Organisations”.
The publication, which some view as both exciting and controversial, will look at 50 companies only, in a country with hundreds of businesses that in one way or the other may believe were “historical”.
Founder and editor-in-chief of the Book of African Records Tapiwa Muzawazi said the criteria used in compiling this list were based on the impact the company has had on Zimbabweans.
“For an entity to qualify onto this list, it must have introduced one or more of three things: an idea, a product or a service, into the society whose end result is a fundamental change in the way we do things. This is the one and only criteria,” he said.
Muzawazi, however, emphasised that this was not a ranking. “The companies and organisations that are on the list are not to be ranked numerically, they will appear alphabetically. We have researched thoroughly and deeply, to make the list as legitimate and objective as it can be,” Muzawazi said.
“The Herald was recently informed to have made it into the list for introducing the first printed newspaper in Zimbabwe in 1891, setting a trend that has become a feature of everyday life.” The Herald is Zimbabwe’s oldest newspaper, whose first copy, then handwritten, was published in 1890. Lobels Bread also made it onto the list for introducing mechanical baking in 1954, as opposed to previous manual methods used in producing bread, making bread instantly, widely and cheaply available. Before that, bread was an expensive and mostly for the white elite,” he said.
The Book of African Records recently commissioned a new department of lists and rankings that it says was Africa’s answer to lists published by Forbes and Fortune magazines which are mainly centred on European and American companies and organisations. They also revived the “National Schools Quiz Tournament” on ZBCTV.
Online Reporter