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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
WHEN President Mnangagwa assumed the Presidency following Operation Restore Legacy in 2017, one of the things that he did was to invite diaspora-based Zimbabweans to invest back home.
He held meetings with the South Africa- based business community before taking the Zimbabwe is Open for Business policy to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2018.
The President’s message was clear: it was time for Zimbabwe to leapfrog its development and catch up with other nations.
Shortly after President Mnangagwa announced his vision to transform the country into an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
He also reiterated that only Zimbabweans can develop their country and introduced the nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo philosophy.
Among the individuals who listened to the President’s call to invest home was businessman Cde Nkosana Mkandla (49) who had been living in the United States after studying there.
He came back home to Bulawayo in 2018.
Cde Mkandla said during his stay in the US he worked in Fortune 500 companies among them, Whirlpool that put him in a strategic position to engage directly with American investors.
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years.
Cde Mkandla, is among the candidates who were elected in the Zanu-PF primary elections to represent the party in the harmonised elections.
He is the ruling party’s Bulawayo North aspiring legislator and believes he has what it takes to bring the city’s former glory judging from his experience.
“In my role there as a capital controller, I determined which project should be prioritised and funded and I also looked at the engineering budget. Whirlpool company was doing US$23 billion in revenues and I was in charge of US$450 millions of capital budget,” said Cde Mkandla.
“So I determined if we needed to do a cheaper project by building a factory in Mexico or a factory in China. I was in that conversation. I was one of the people who made the decision on where we should take the project in order to maximise our shares.”
He said when he returned to Zimbabwe, he managed to lure American investment worth US $1,2 million and their interests are in mining and real estate development.
“We can attract capital; I have proven that we can attract capital. When we came to Zimbabwe, we had more than US$1,2 million generated capital. I brought investors who were saying they can get better capital in Zimbabwe. I was able to plough that into the country. When I came back, I opened a private equity company, there are two of us in Zimbabwe and our other partners are in Illinois in America,” he said.
Cde Mkandla said his company BanTach Resources has shares in Zimplow and is involved in mining and real estate.
Bantach Resources redeveloped Kudzanai Bus Terminus in a Build, Operate and Transfer arrangement with the City of Gweru.
Cde Mkandla said all the investment projects that he is involved in are a direct response to President Mnangagwa’s message that only Zimbabweans can develop the country.
“The President is very visionary; he wants to move Zimbabwe to where it needs to be. He is looking at how best can we build the society that we want, a society that benefits the Zimbabwean people,” said Cde Mkandla.
“That is why he came up with the philosophy that a nation is built by its own people. Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo. No one else is going to come and build it for us. So, it is incumbent on us to build this city and build this nation.”
He said to develop the country he is now using his international links to bring investment to the country.
“I want to use all my knowledge that I have attained in the diaspora to develop the city. What Bulawayo needs is a lot of investment and I’m looking at ways to use the knowledge that I have attained to bring investment. I know the big institutions that have funds and how I can engage them to invest in this country. I was on the other side,” he said.
Cde Mkandla said he grew up in Bulawayo and it saddens him to see the city in a bad state.
He said he would want to take up the issues that affect the city to Parliament.
“Bulawayo North is where I reside and where I have my properties. And it’s where I grew up so I’m very passionate about that area. So, it was more natural that I run in Bulawayo North.
I want to be part of the process to get the city together. Residents are crying about water; service delivery is poor. So, we are trying to find ways to mitigate their suffering while we prepare to have a better Government that can run the city better,” he said.
“Bulawayo was an industrial hub and we need to bring back the legacy of Bulawayo as the country’s industrial hub,” he said.
He said his political grounding has been influenced by his parents, Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration Cde Obert Mpofu and his wife Cde Sikhanyisiwe who have been of service to the community.
“I was born in a political family so Zanu-PF has been in our family DNA for the longest time. Before I went to the States, I was just beginning to be in the Youth League. I was born in a family that were part of the liberators of this country, I understand the sacrifices that were made by the country’s liberators,” he said.
“I come from a family of a pedigree of politics, but what I learnt from them is the passion of taking care of the people, working for the people. They taught me to always have people at heart, what affects someone else directly affects me indirectly. So, I was raised in a family that understand other people’s problems,” he said.
Cde Mkandla said his ability to deliver on projects can be measured on how they redeveloped Kudzanai Terminus in Gweru in record time.
He said it is saddening that Bulawayo still does not have a modern terminus yet they had bided to improve Egodini but lost the bid.
Bulawayo has become chaotic due to congestion in the city centre as a result of delays in renovating Egodini.
“My kind of projects that I get involved in are large on transparency and improve the lives of people in their areas. This is what I wish for Bulawayo.
For the Egodini project, we had bid unfortunately we didn’t get the bid. At the time we were awarded the Gweru one, two years after the Egodini bid but we were able to finish it in record time. We are operating and they are not operating,” he said. -@nqotshili
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