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Harare Bureau
THE Zimbabwe Investment Authority’s one stop shop centre model is not working as envisaged, amid revelations that it has become another stopover delaying the approval of investment proposals. ZIA’s one stop shop centre model was launched by President Mugabe in 2010 with a view to expedite the investments approval process by bringing all relevant regulatory agents under a single roof.
However, chief executive Richard Mbaiwa said ZIA had become a “one more stop” as officers seconded to the authority by statutory agents did not have powers to make necessary decisions.
As such, he said the officers were only coming to ZIA only to collect proposal papers to take them to their superiors for approval, which lengthened the process instead of making it shorter.
Mbaiwa said this at the start of a two-day strategy workshop in Harare, ending today, organised by the government and the World Bank to examine Zimbabwe’s experiences regarding ease of doing business.
The country was ranked number 170 out of 189 countries in the world on the World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings for 2014.
It is believed that the ease and cost of doing business determine investments and how far the private sector can drive economic growth.
“The real issue is that the model was based on physical presence where investors have got every (regulatory) institution as opposed to a single window, where the (investment approval) processes would be done in the background, as back office work, and not to provide another interface with the investor under a single roof,” he said.
The delays in the investments approval process has been identified as part of a litany of reasons the country is unable to attract significant investment, which totalled only $400 million last year.
Online Reporter