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Prosper Ndlovu, Business Editor
ZIMBABWEANS should believe in themselves and heed President Mugabe’s advice to develop vibrant value addition and beneficiation factories to reclaim the country’s status in the global economy, a South African tycoon has said.
In an interview in Bulawayo where he attended the 2015 pharmaceutical indaba which ended at the weekend, Aspen Pharmacare senior executive responsible for trade development, Storvas Nicolaou, said unless Zimbabweans and Africa stood up to develop their economy, they would remain perpetual dependents.
Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited is a multinational South African holding company for pharmaceutical concerns, and the largest drug company in Africa.
“There are a lot of doomsayers about the African society, that we can’t do anything on our own, we’re labelled a continent of dependents. We need to believe in ourselves as Africans and know that things can be done here.
“We need to place it into the perspective that we can’t develop Africa unless we produce things in Africa. There’s no use for us to continue selling raw materials to Europe at cheaper prices only to buy them back as high cost finished products,” said Nicolaou.
“President Mugabe is right to call on the continent to embrace beneficiation because we’ll always be dependents. We also need to educate our governments to come up with policies that promote local procurement. Countries that support growth of local firms are better off in the long term.”
The visiting business expert said while African governments cry foul over lack of funding, they should seek alternative short term measures to aid economic growth.
He said donor agencies should also be engaged to support local firms and create jobs.
“We need to prioritise enterprise development and adopt supporting policy framework. We must be exporting finished products and not jobs.
“Local beneficiation and value addition in the manufacturing sector needs to be supported. We need to support our industries as Africa. The problem is that we’re not supporting our own industries,” Nicolaou said.
He said Zimbabwe and Africa should take a leaf from countries such as India who have created jobs through special economic zones, tax subsidies and tax holidays.
Nicolaou condemned donor dependency and challenged multilateral institutions to provide lending not for consumption but production.
“Let them avail funds for value addition and enterprise development. Donor funding perpetuates dependency. Even donors should be made to procure goods and services locally to support domestic industry,” he said.
“As Aspen we believe Africa can do it. Today we’re the sixth largest generic company in the world.”
Nicolaou said his company has been able to stay afloat through adoption of four strategies, which he said local firms can emulate.
“The first thing is to develop a clear strategy and vision and then work out a detailed programme of action. Secondly we need to have a decisive management that can deliver. Often absence or lack of leadership and management decision cripples operations,” he said.
“We need to create global competitiveness more quickly before the next competitor. There is also a need for an entrepreneurial mindset that is informed by innovation and quick actioning of new ideas.”
Nicolaou said the ability to learn from past mistakes was golden.
“On this one it’s important to take firm decisions and commitment to never repeat the same mistakes,” he said.
Online Reporter