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Quest Motors Manufacturing says a single order for vehicles from state-owned institutions would help revive over 10 local companies and in the process ensure that the government meets objectives set out in its economic blueprint, Zim-Asset. The company’s operations manager Carl Fernandez said that ministries, state-owned enterprises and parastatals had not followed the government directive compelling them to buy 80 percent of their vehicles from local car assemblers. Zimbabwe has five car assemblers.
“No order has come through from the government. If high vehicle users such as the army, TelOne and Zesa make an order, it would fix half of the economy of Manicaland. The glass company would be in business, Karina textiles would still be open and the timber companies, the spring companies wouldn’t be struggling,” he said.
Fernandez said the downstream effects of reviving the firms will be massive. He said it was a pity Zimbabwe was exporting its labour and resources to South Africa. “It’s a pity that Zimbabwe has to close its factories when solutions are right in front of us,” said Fernandez.
He said Zimbabwe was the only country outside South Africa where car assembling could be done but the country was not taking advantage of this. He said in most instances Zimbabwe was ahead of SA. Zimbabwe, according to Fernandez, imported 42,000 vehicles last year and 92 percent of these vehicles were taken up by government. He said what was disturbing was that individuals, companies and the government were importing the same vehicles being assembled locally at lower specifications but higher prices.
The concerns raised by Fernandez are the same concerns being raised by other local manufacturers who are calling for the consumption of local products. The Zimbabwean economy cannot be sustained by retailing imported goods. The solution to turning around the economy is to boost manufacturing and this is only possible when Zimbabweans consume locally produced products. The country should therefore be working on drastically reducing imports. What this entails is that the bulk of the goods the nation consumes should be produced locally.
The government should take the lead in encouraging consumption of locally produced goods and it is therefore saddening to note that 92 percent of the vehicles imported last year were taken up by government. The government will soon spend millions of dollars on MPs vehicles and all these vehicles should be bought from local assemblers. State enterprises and parastatals should be forced to buy locally assembled vehicles which are of high quality but low prices.
We want at this juncture to commend the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education for directing school authorities to buy school buses from local assemblers. This is a positive move and we hope all government ministries and state enterprises will do the same. A lot has been said about the benefits of supporting local industry and its now time to act.
Quest Motors is saying just a single order will change the economy of Manicaland and obvious the impact of several orders from different state enterprises will be huge. It is our fervent hope that once the government takes the lead, private companies will also buy locally assembled cars as opposed to importing the vehicles.
The government should put in place measures to discourage imports of goods that can be produced locally. These could include raising duty and in some cases banning completely such imports.
We want to once again implore the government to, without delay, respond to concerns raised by Quest and other local manufacturers in order to help revive the manufacturing industry.
Online Reporter