Bulawayo industrialisation should be anchored on relevant skills set

Evolving technologies since the advent of the digital era call for the skilling and re-skilling of the labour force in order for it to remain relevant.

With these technological advancements, new skills, which are relevant to the current world’s economic landscape have come into play while at the same time rendering useless some skills, which were relevant long back.

The Government last year established the Ministry of Skills Audit and Development to oversee the implementation of the 2018 National Critical Skills Audit findings.

The audit revealed a significant shortage of skills in the economy, despite having a large number of educated and unemployed individuals, particularly the youth.

The shortage underscores the importance of aligning training programs with critical skills needed in different sectors of the economy.

It also highlights the need to update and modernise existing skills to meet present and future demands, in line with the country’s industrialisation agenda.

Officials from the newly established ministry were recently in Bulawayo for a provincial skills consultation workshop, where suggestions were made on which skills are needed to industrialise and re-industrialise Bulawayo.

Bulawayo was once the country’s industrial hub before the second largest city suffered massive closure and relocation of big companies.

In order for the city to regain its glory, there is a need to apply relevant skills in every key sector of its economy.

Bulawayo was well known for its textile industry, leather and food processing, among other industries.

However, new skills are needed as the nation and the world at large are moving in line with technology and the need to be climate smart.

There is a need for skills to establish smart energy such as solar, e-commerce, use of technologically advanced machinery such as artificial intelligence-based machines, among others.

Bulawayo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Permanent Secretary, Mr Paul Nyoni said the Bulawayo Metropolitan Provincial Economic Development Plan for 2021-25 prioritises infrastructure in all its facets: water, sewerage, roads, housing, information and communication technologies and electricity.

He said the plan also prioritises increased access to health and education services both in terms of increased facilities for a growing populace, as well as higher quality services.

The third priority area, he said, is around employment opportunities to increase numbers entering the job market every year.

Mr Nyoni said in order to address the massive infrastructure requirements in the province, skills in the various aspects of the building environment are required in increasing numbers.

“Most talked about projects in the province cover the areas of roads rehabilitation, the whole water supply chain, sewerage and solid waste management, electricity with a bias towards renewable energy and modern housing with the catch phrase being smart city developments.

“In education, the Education 5.0 policy challenges existing institutions pushing them towards more and more innovations and therefore the need to configure structurally and in other ways,” he said.

“It goes without saying that new institutions must be correctly planned and constructed from day one. In health delivery, the vision is to have more and improved services being provided by local institutions, if anything to reverse the current health tourism in favour of local health institutions and skills.”

Mr Nyoni said with the policies and help being rendered by the Second Republic, Bulawayo Province envisions effectively surpassing those bygone days by reviving and growing its industrial sector.

At the core of this strategy is the revival and expansion of the railway system whose hub is in Bulawayo.

Mr Nyoni said it must also be noted that a significant part of Bulawayo’s industry and commerce comprised hundreds of companies that provided goods and services to the railways and these will again operate at full steam once the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) has fully recovered.

“We are aware of the goings on in the background as the Government prioritises this key economic enabler,” he said.

All efforts by the province can be possible if every sector finds relevant and up to date skills, which can apply technology and innovation to reach the target.

Mr Nyoni said some companies have state of the art machinery but companies end up retraining its workers from different colleges and universities as they lack skills to operate automated and technologically advanced machines.

He said the meat and leather sectors are an important part of industrial recovery.

Agro-processing makes up a significant part of the industrial landscape of the province from millers, to the textile value chain and manufacturers and processors of various foods and so on.

This has seen the province engaging local colleges and universities to re-skill and up-skill people in the leather value chain so that they become small and medium players who also supply local outlets and export value added leather products.

“Part of the leather cluster revival strategy that we have is to go back to Professor Mqhele Dlodlo here (Nust Vice Chancellor) and Principal from Bulawayo Polytechnic. We have had many strategy meetings to say let’s go back and train people so that they become SMEs that are acceptable,” said Mr Nyathi.

The pharmaceutical and cosmetic sector is active in Bulawayo, as is a fairly active sector that manufactures equipment for the agricultural and mining sectors and there are enterprises supporting the construction materials from cement manufacturing, to brick-making.

“There is, of course, a large retail and wholesale sector. Then there are the “new” areas in which the province has no track record.”

Bulawayo was the home of both WRS and Supersonic, large radio and TV makers of the past, but the city is far from today’s advanced technology and service innovations.

“In addition, the province is in the middle of that part of the country that attracts solar energy projects and has a nascent recycling sub-sector that requires different skills set at all levels of the enterprise, from those available in the past,” said Mr Nyoni.

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Some of the issues raised included the need to train and retrain officials so that they have the ability to evaluate partnerships and tenders as this is critical in public-private partnerships.

Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Judith Ncube said skills development is at the core of any meaningful socioeconomic development of any nation.

She said it doesn’t matter how vast natural resource endowments are, without the requisite skills the province will be unable to explore and exploit all it has into tangible products and services.

Minister Ncube said livelihoods cannot be changed with resources alone without the critical skills to value add and beneficiate them.

“As you are all aware, the Second Republic led by the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe embraced the Devolution and Decentralisation Agenda.

“The agenda seeks to make the system of governance community based, people centred and facilitate the growth of provincial economies,” she said.

“To that end, we are implementing economic devolution where provinces and districts will act as economic hubs competing with each other to attract investment and transform themselves into economic zones with their own Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to ensure sustainable and equitable development of the country.

“These devolved tiers have some fiscal responsibilities which include deciding their own budgets and setting their own development priorities. We have a Provincial Economic Development Plan (PEDP) but we need the right human capital to implement and review the plan when necessary.”

To achieve all these noble endeavors, Minister Ncube said human capacity and skills gaps continue to militate against the full implementation of devolution programmes across all the tiers of Government.

She said the development of the province requires critical and relevant skills to spearhead rural industrialisation and exploit indigenous knowledge systems as essential ingredients for the rural development strategy.

“Given that agriculture is the backbone of the economy, there are opportunities to re-skill and up-skill in the construction of dams and irrigation infrastructure to enhance productivity in the sector.

“The idea behind implementation of devolution in Zimbabwe is to deepen democracy and empower citizens to make locally based development choices to improve the delivery of public services given that at times the centralised system of Government’s decision-making process may be slow,” said the Minister.

“To enhance all this, human capital development is an indispensable aspect in the industrialisation and modernisation agenda of our country. The process of developing the required human capital should be informed by existing and forecast critical skills that drive key economic sectors.”

Ministry of Skills Audit and Development Permanent Secretary Ambassador Rudo Chitiga told Chronicle that any national development plan should have a skills profile attached to it.

She said her ministry would work with different ministries and stakeholders to develop the skills profiles for all development policies and programmes that the Government commits to do.

From the consultations done by the Ministry of Skills Audit in about 29 Government ministries, Amb Chitiga said there is a skills mismatch.

She said some of the products of the skills development institutions in the country do not meet the needs of the available industries.

“There is a need for more dialogue and collaborations between industry and our training institutions.

“We also found out that there is very little investment in skills development to those that are not going to the universities, as you all know that the pass rate for our Ordinary Level is around 29 percent, so 71 percent of our young people did not get five O-levels and what are we doing for them?” said the Permanent Secretary.

She said there is a need to equip available Vocational Training Centers so that those who don’t have five O-levels can be enrolled there and get proper training for different skills. @SikhulekelaniM1