adminOliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
WHEN Alec Ndlovu, 52, lost his job as an assistant personnel officer at the now defunct Bulawayo Clothing Factory in 1994, he did not sit back and wallow in misery.
Even though it became increasingly difficult for him to secure a job in the formal economy, where many companies were either downsizing or shutting down he did not despair.
This failure to find work, he said, was despite the diplomas in personnel management, marketing, and industrial relations that he had attained through correspondence from the College of Professional Management.
In the end, it was something he received from the Bulawayo Clothing Factory when he was retrenched that saved Ndlovu, a father of three.
“We were each given two heavy duty industrial sewing machines comprising an over-locking machine and a plain sewing machine,” Ndlovu told The Chronicle.
“The machines assisted me to become an entrepreneur operating from home.”
Empowered with his two machines, but possessing little skill in sewing, Ndlovu became a sole trader who has managed to eke out a living from sewing.
“Given the background that I was an administrative employee, when we got retrenched, I was so determined that I would get a job in the formal sector,” he recalled.
“However, I realised that things were not to be so. Knowing the limited skill that I had in sewing, with the help of my former workmates, I ended up improving on cutting and designing.”
He began by sewing curtains, but as his skills improved, advanced to making shirts, trousers, dresses, skirts, and church garments, among other products.
Ndlovu has found a market for his wares locally, particularly in the rural areas.
He also exports into neighbouring Botswana.
Through his self-help project, he has been able to send his children, Rejoice, 24, Busi, 22, and Gift, 20, to school up to tertiary level.
“My first born, Rejoice, has just finished her teacher training course with the United College of Education,” Ndlovu revealed.
“Busi did nurse aide training and is in South Africa, while Gift is a first year student at the National University of Science and Technology, studying for a degree in the Faculty of Applied Sciences.”
“However, this year, I’m fretting over the boy’s future because of the amount of fees that I need to raise for his studies,” said Ndlovu with a chuckle.
Conventional students at Nust pay around $465 a semester while those studying under the parallel programme fork out about $565 per semester.
Since his retrenchment, Ndlovu has also managed to build his own seven-roomed house in Nketa 9.
He said: “At the time when I got retrenched, I had just bought a housing stand in Nketa 9 in 1993. Until I ventured into a self help project, putting up a structure on my stand proved a bit difficult.”
Being an entrepreneur was not an easy task for Ndlovu, as he had to ensure that the proceeds from his business were also channelled towards the upkeep of his family, as well as keeping the venture going.
He said financial discipline and hard work had kept his business going, even up to the present day, despite the challenges that he faced in the early days.
“When I started off my business, the going was tough as I had to fight really hard to shrug off stiff competition from cheap imported products that also found their way into the country,” Ndlovu recalled.
“As a result, both locally and in the Botswana market, I have maintained that my market is in the rural areas. In the export market, I had good returns based on the strength of the Botswana pula and the South African rand.”
The official exchange rate of the pula against the United State dollar was pegged at $1:10,9 pula while the rand was trading at $1: 14,6 rand.
Due to stiff competition and uncertainty on the stability of the market,
Ndlovu decided to remain a one-person business, rather than formally registering his project and employing other people.
Apart from intermittent power supplies, one of the challenges facing his business is lack of funding to procure state-of the art machinery.
Since the liberalisation of the economy in February 2009, Zimbabwe has continues to face a tight liquidity situation.
Due to the liquidity crunch in the economy, lending rates have remained high. Some of the financial institutions were charging interest rates of up to 25 percent per annum while the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has through moral suasion called on the money lenders to reduce their rates to a single digit.
Consequently, high lending rates have been prohibitive for businesses to access working capital to revive operations.
“As an entrepreneur, I also appeal to the powers that be to create an enabling environment that promotes business growth and development,” Ndlovu said. “The authorities need to ensure that there is enough power generation in the country to revitalise the industry.”
For more than a decade, Zimbabwe has faced critical power shortages due to lack of investment in electricity generation plants.
The situation has been exacerbated by antiquated machinery at Zesa.
The country, which has a national demand of 2,200 megawatts, is presently producing about 1,300MW.
“Issues such as water shortages, lack of industrial space and high licensing fees, red-tape and bureaucracy are some of the fundamentals that the government needs to address to promote industrial activity,” Ndlovu added.
The prevailing economic climate has seen a number of companies closing down operations throughout the country.
Once the industrial hub, Bulawayo has been the hardest hit as more than 20,000 people have become redundant in the past few years.
Ndlovu believes that, “Bulawayo as an economy can be resuscitated. It means the revenue base for the nation will improve significantly, considering that the city was once the industrial hub of the country.”
Asked about his advice to prospective entrepreneurs, Ndlovu said: “It takes a lot of sacrifice to do well in business. Sometimes it doesn’t give much of returns to be in business, but it needs one to do research to penetrate the markets.”
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