Buy Zimbabwe — case of forcing quenched donkey to drink

Dumisani Nsingo Economic Focus
AGGRESSIVE consumer education is needed to push for the promotion of consumption and use of locally produced products under the banner of Buy Zimbabwe Campaign.However, this is no easy task in a country where the majority of consumers have developed a mindset of accepting everything which is foreign as the best — with the phenomenon accelerating at the height of food shortages during the period 2006 to 2008.

Since its inception in 2011, the Buy Zimbabwe team has embarked on a series of in-store promotions and road shows aimed at encouraging consumers to appreciate local products. However, swaying the consumers has been a mammoth task with only a few consumers mellowing — it has surely been a case of taking a quenched donkey to the river and forcing it to drink.

To this end, the Buy Zimbabwe Campaign, which was designed to market local goods (especially the ones with the Buy Zimbabwe insignia) and services, to promote growth, empowerment and employment is still to fully achieve its objectives.

In fact, there are a myriad of challenges that culminate in our locally manufactured products playing second fiddle to foreign goods on the local market.

The problem starts from the factory right up to the shelves — with manufacturers feeling the brunt of procuring raw materials at high prices locally and later being subjected to high costs of funds, electricity and urban council charges.

The impact of the economic crisis on the manufacturing sector is so huge as local industry has to compete with goods from countries with low cost bases of which most of the foreign companies that export goods into this country are awarded export incentives by their governments.

Though most of the local products are of superior quality than the imported ones, consumers end up having no choice but to go for the foreign products which are mostly cheap.

This has led to an unlevel playing field for local products to compete with foreign goods. There has been an outcry from local manufacturers that traders who are importing mostly finished products are unfairly muscling out local manufacturers on the local market. The unfairness obtains from the weak border controls by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and other government agencies involved at the ports of entry.

However, Government has played its part to protect local industry by widening the number of goods that require import licences following an insurmountable proliferation of imports from other countries over the years.

The import bill is projected to surge to $8,3 billion this year, from an estimated $7,7 billion last year.

Most companies have since the dollarisation of the economy poured in millions of US dollars for the recapitalisation of their entities — replacing obsolete machinery with latest technologies and even rebranding and changing their packaging to meet international standards but all this has somehow come to naught as consumers continue to favour foreign goods.

Of course the high unemployment rate, which has been accelerated by the massive closure of companies, and the liquidity crunch have left consumers with little choice except to go for the cheapest products, in most cases foreign ones.

However, it has to be noted that consumers today operate in increasingly complex markets, awash with information and an extensive product range. Making good choices and protecting their interests require special skills and knowledge. Consumer education is critical in this regard; it can be defined as a process of developing and enhancing skills and knowledge to make informed and well reasoned choices that take societal values and objectives into account.

Consumer education can help develop critical thinking and raise awareness, thereby enabling consumers to become pro-active. It is also an important vehicle for building the confidence that consumers need to operate in increasingly complex markets.

In this regard the Buy Zimbabwe team should be empowered to ensure that it spreads the word of promoting the acceptance of Zimbabwean products especially those with an insignia indicating their origin. Consumers should be made to understand that buying local products enmasse will spur companies to increase production and subsequently create more job opportunities.

Overall there should be unity of purpose among the stakeholders who are involved in the campaign to promote the purchase of local goods and services.