City courts investors to ease dependence on ratepayers

Conrad Mwanawashe Business Reporter
Harare Sunshine Holdings, the city’s investment arm, is courting investors to exploit and develop business opportunities to lessen dependency on ratepayers, a senior official has said. The holding company held an interactive session with the business community last Thursday. HSH board chairman Mr Oswell Binha said: “The ideal model that we are proposing is a joint venture to create entities that are going to be jointly managed by the city and the private sector.

“There is potential for us to remove corruption and individual expedience around council issues because the board will provide the oversight role and reflect it to council for the benefit of the ratepayers.”

Notable business leaders at the meeting included FBC Holdings chief executive officer Mr John Mushayavanhu, Pearl Properties managing director Francis Nyambiri and Mr Kenias Mafukidze of KM Financial Services.

A strategic plan developed in 2004-2005 created civic and business arms for the city.
The creation of the business unit is supposed to make it easier for the city to operate commercially without being hamstrung by the red-tape that would impede investments by a civic body.

The city has interests in farming, markets for home industries and fresh produce, flea markets, horticulture and floriculture and stadia.
There are also opportunities in the health sector, especially in pest control, Wilkins Hospital’s expansion and a proposed modern hospital at the corner of Herbert Chitepo Avenue and Fifth Street.

Other opportunities exist in the leisure industry at Harava Dam, the Mukuvisi Corridor and Cleveland Dam.
Harare town clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi said: “What we need to do is to diversify our revenue sources. We then divided council into two parts, civic and wealth creation. Most cities are concentrating on wealth creation which requires business entities. Council is rich, but has not been leveraging its assets.

“We cannot manage the wealth creation entities because Council has too much bureaucracy. They should be managed like businesses, enterprises therefore we create the holding body which will manage all the entities.”