adminPaidamoyo Chipunza Health Reporter
A PHARMACEUTICAL entrepreneur has ceded 25 percent shares from each of his medical outlets to his employees in a move to support the Government’s indigenisation and empowerment policies. Bright Pharmacies owner and managing director Mr Brighton Chawatama, who runs nine pharmacies throughout the country, said his branch managers would get 15 percent shareholding while the other employees would share the remaining 10 percent among themselves.
“These Government initiatives will also improve staff commitment and loyalty when the employees realise that they are also owners of the business,” said Mr Chawatama, who is a former Zimbabwe National Army officer.
Mr Chawatama said as the Zimbabwean economy continued to recover no employer could afford to lose essential skills to competitors.
“A business may manage with mediocre workers, but competent workers can propel an average business to greater heights. Likewise, bad workers can cause flourishing empires to collapse,” he said.
Mr Chawatama called on financial institutions to extend loans to his workers so that they buy a bigger stake in Bright Pharmacies.
The nine branches of Bright Pharmacies are located in Harare city centre, Southerton, Westgate, Epworth, Dzivaresekwa, Kadoma, Chivhu and Bindura.
Mr Chawatama said work was in progress to open a medical centre in Southlea Park. He said future prospects of Bright Pharmacies lay in wholesaling and manufacture of drugs essential for both Government and private sector. At the moment, he said, they were into compound manufacturing and on a small scale.
“If we get partners to set up a manufacturing plant, we should be able to help Zimbabweans access affordable drugs and maybe this will reduce the national health budget,” he said.
He said they were looking forward to having made progress by the end of the year in their quest for a manufacturing plant. “We are also setting up doctors’ rooms at some of our pharmacies so that they are one-stop shops,” he said.
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