Cry my beloved Zimbabwe

of Africa.
The farms, industries, banking sector and in fact, all sectors were in full swing. My natural resources which were being fully utilised are still there because I have so much; even envied by everyone around me and even abroad. Not many are as blessed as I am in terms of resources.

At 32 years I should be among the best but am not, neither do I match the so called better ones. My health is deteriorating; I am becoming thinner and weaker everyday. Why should I become an eyesore as if I do not have children of my own?

Where are my children, why are they not rescuing me by producing and manufacturing? Why are they not utilising the resources that I have? What is the problem?

Is it that I gave birth to less talented children? I get confused as I hear my neighbours boasting of how they are benefiting from the expertise of you my children.

In 1980 I only had one university (University of Zimbabwe), today I have plenty. I thought the more literate children I have the better for me. Is it that my children are studying for degrees which are not relevant at home but good enough for my neighbours? You will all tell me that the money here is not good for you.

The economy needs indigenous takers to rejuvenate it, have the courage and determination to build your own economy. Yes, you can do it. When the industries, farms and mines were producing at their best, it was you my children who provided the labour. Even my neighbours tell me you are hard working and it’s true you are hard working.

When most of you were retrenched under Esap, as a parent I was very saddened but I started smiling when you ventured into small business, I said Esap was a blessing in disguise.

I saw a ray of hope and smiled. At 32 my smile has turned into sorrow. I thought you will grow your small business and turn back the hands of time. When economic saboteurs started abandoning industries and different business sectors I thought you would take over and continue just as good as them or better.

Again I am disappointed, most of you cry capital but you have been given loans by financial institutions and failed to pay back. Most of you have bought luxury cars with money borrowed for inputs and raw materials.

Some of you have even married second and third wives with money borrowed to grow business activities. Some of you have even moved around streets showering people with money borrowed for business purposes. Some of you have bought designer suits and shoes others became “pleasure managers” overnight.

As a result financial institutions have lost faith in you. Instead of your companies being entities to partner with, they are now regarded as business risks. No financial institution can give you money without asking for security.

Your behaviour my children has affected everyone. Even your innocent brothers and sisters with genuine business proposals and want to correctly use the loans but without security have been caught in cross fire. In the few schemes where they do not want security it’s mostly small amounts, good enough for dog food not a serious business project.

Even when my other children took over farms in the name of correcting land imbalances, I did not see anything wrong with it.

I even smiled when your leaders started supporting you by giving you different capital inputs. You were given free fuel, what did you do with it, did you use it for farming? Some of you sold it and used the money on non farming related activities.

You were given fertiliser and seeds some of you sold everything to satisfy your other egos without even thinking of farming.

Some were even lucky enough to receive tractors and others used those tractors as means of transport to different drinking spots and what happened next?

They were involved in accidents due to intoxication. Others used the tractors to ferry firewood from the trees cut down from the newly acquired farms and concentrated on doing rounds selling firewood and channelled the money to other non farming activities. Others took over farms with all the farming equipment and infrastructure in place, and what did they do?

They sold most of the expensive machinery and vandalised the infrastructure to make a quick buck not knowing farming is a long-term project, capital intensive and needs a lot of patience.
Today you still cry for the same inputs and machinery which you abused long back.

As a result, I now have to import maize and all the other farm produce which I used to export. Do not tell me most of you stopped maize farming because tobacco is paying more? Then how do you expect me to retain my position as the breadbasket of Africa.

They might all disown you my children but as a parent, I will not. I love you all my children and now I want you to listen and listen very carefully. I am crying for producers and manufacturers. It’s the solution to my poor health and lost weight.

Get serious with your producing and manufacturing. It’s time you start producing and manufacturing with a target to sustain the whole nation. How do I feel when 70 percent of the products in all the major retail outlets are imported? I no longer have many products to identify my self with.

There is a very small difference now between someone doing his/her shopping in Johannesburg or Harare, all their shopping trolleys are filled by the same products, manufactured by the same manufacturer.

The only difference is that the Harare shopper is paying more because of the landing cost and the retailers’ mark-up. If my memory serves me right I had a whole lot of products with my identity. If one of my children brought groceries from outside you could notice the difference because the shelves here were filled with Zimbabwean products with my identity.

Today if one does his or her shopping along First Street and go to Roadport and call his/her people to come and help carry no one will doubt that they did the shopping in South Africa.
Producers and manufacturers should start competing with their foreign compatriots.

Some of you will want to tell me that the foreign producers and manufacturers are financially stronger. I do not agree to that because no one is as stronger as all of you put together. Identify yourselves as one family first, then in the different sectors come together for a unity of purpose.

Have you ever realised how much you will save if you pool your resources together and make a bulk order for your raw materials, instead of 50 of you travelling to buy the same raw materials in small quantities you can make one bulk payment through the net.

The advantage is you will get discounts associated with bulk orders, transport costs will be cheaper as you will share, your business operations will not be disturbed.

In business, time is money and you will have saved a lot of it and you can arrange with your freight agent to deliver right to your doorstep. Others will say the same manufacturers and producers who were here are the ones doing it from outside with their products finding their way back here, which maybe true but this is where my producers and manufacturers should come in.

You are to blame for the influx of so many imported products. Some of you especially SMEs, your products are of very bad quality.

You need to work with the Standards Association of Zimbabwe to improve the quality of your products. Please stop rushing semi- finished products to the market.

Try to involve skilled personnel in areas you are not well versed with. My children, I have noticed with interest that some of your products branding is not quite appealing, it’s very dull. Sometimes the branding is okay but the product tells a different story. Today it’s good, tomorrow it’s something else and you easily fail to maintain quality standards.

I give you an example, one of your brothers bought a 750ml bottle of engine cleaner and it was very effective, he even recommended it to his employer but when the employer ordered he was very disappointed as the engine cleaner was of very poor quality.

The manufacturer deliberately put poor quality products on the market because he or she wanted to maximise on profit forgetting the negative effects it will have on the brand. Our customers have lost faith in your products preferring imported brands. Stop this habit as you are stabbing yourselves in the back. How do your fellow brothers and sisters support you when they do not have confidence in your products? Charity begins at home; it’s time you start building confidence in your brothers and sisters by producing good high quality products.

Do not feel insulted my children in the SME sector, I am putting more emphasis on you because you are contributing about 60 percent of the GDP and also employing around 65 percent of the employed population, so you are very important to my rehabilitation. You have challenges which are well known like infrastructure, high utility bills, load shedding and unavailability of capital.

These should only affect your product quantity not quality. Your efforts my children should also be supported by Government policies, it should be teamwork, for example if Zimra can reduce or completely exempt duty on all imported raw materials.

This will bring competitive prices on your products and will stand against imported products. The Government as the biggest buyer should also be biased towards locally produced products and not accept imported products when the same product is available locally. If locally produced products are expensive, let’s look at the costs of producing and come up with a solution to cut costs. You can still build confidence among financial institutions by learning to pay back in time what you borrow.

There are still solutions with the financial institutions; you can let them control the finances which they lend to you until you can stand on your own. That way the risk of them loosing their money is very minimal and along the way you will learn how to control finances. I have also realised most of you my children despite your potential to do well, you lack corporate governance basics in your business.

The same person normally the owner of the business does almost everything including the sensitive bookkeeping part which he or she has no knowledge of. Please you should have division of labour, let accountants do your book- keeping, let marketers do your marketing, let researchers help improve your products quality, let HR people employ and manage your employees professionally.

Do not call your cousin who cannot even write his name to come and manage a business you started from zero because you are afraid employees will steal when you are away. There are a lot of consultant companies who have a lot of business security systems that suits your business requirements and with today’s technology you can actually know whatever is happening at your workplace from anywhere in the world. All these different departments complement each other and bring growth to your companies. You should also attend different business training seminars to further your business knowledge.

As for you my children in farming you should know your soils, what they require to give you good yields. You should know the right time to prepare for your planting, should understand the changing rainfall patterns and know the right crops that suit the new pattern. You should know the farming modules that give you more tonnage per hectare. You also need the right trained personnel as farming is not just about putting seeds in the soil and waiting for germination. You should also know when to practise crop rotation so as to maintain your good soils. If we do the right things at the right time even with our tight budgets there will not be any need to import chickens, milk, tomatoes, maize, wheat or even eggs.

Yes, you can do it my children; I still have faith in you. Please my children I want my smile back, let me smile again as I look forward to celebrating my 33rd birthday next year.

Melvin Marembo is the Vice Chairman of the Harare Chamber of SMEs and also the chairman of Emancipated Entrepreneurs of Zimbabwe. Email at [email protected]