Online Reporter
INVESTMENT in Zimbabwe has been rising significantly over the past few years as a direct result of the Second Republic providing a stable environment coupled with policies designed to increase the ease of doing business and make sure investors get a fair deal.
The latest step in this process is the launch of an Investor Grievance Response Mechanism by the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency, itself the result of an amalgamation of scattered entities to give as far as possible a single port of call for an investor or potential investor.
The grievance response mechanism is a practical way of dealing with complaints and grievances from investors faced with actions from a Government ministry, agency or department that the investor feels is unfair or which changes an existing policy to the investor’s detriment.
The mechanism should see many grievances being sorted out fairly quickly without the need for complex, expensive and lengthy legal processes.
So when the investor has a good case, the matter will usually be sorted out quickly and in the investor’s favour. One of the operational requirements is “quick resolution”, hopefully when the grievance is still in the early stages with little damage done.
But even when the investor does not get what they desire they are likely to remain on fairly good terms with ZIDA and the Government having had their complaint properly looked into and fairly adjudicated.
Often what someone with a problem wants almost as much as winning their case is the assurance that they are being taken seriously, are not being ignored and that someone sensible with the necessary powers is listening to them and carefully considering their case.
So whatever the result of a particular grievance, Zimbabwe’s ties with the investor improve.
ZIDA was set up about four years ago to bring together what looked almost like competing agencies tasked with development and investment, and start the process of providing a one-stop shop for an investor, where they could deal with just one person at one desk.
We are not there yet, there still often being a number of agencies that require different licences or independent sets of requirements, but we have been moving faster towards that ideal.
This requires administrative changes, legal changes and attitude changes.
The required changes in attitude are to cease fighting over bureaucratic turf and move as fast as possible to a single licencing process for a business.
The legal changes are to combine lists of requirements, cut out the duplication, erase requirements that should no longer apply since they deal with abandoned technologies or a society that no longer exists and ensure that what remains is rational and easy to follow and apply.
The administrative changes follow, combining offices where necessary or at least having everyone next to each other.
A major start on the legal side was made with the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (General Investments) Regulations 18 months ago that made significant changes to simplifying processes and combining regulatory requirements.
Regulation is required, even when it is stripped to the bone. For example there must be health and safety regulations for customers and employees, which include things like fire escapes in premises and the like.
While Zimbabwean labour law has been streamlined, most of the labour regulations that need to be applied in a new factory are the practical ones sorted out by employers and employees in the relevant national employment council.
Our tax code is fairly straight forward, unlike countries where it needs several volumes to hold all the clauses, but a new investor does need to understand the sections that apply to them, both as a corporate tax payer and as a collector of VAT, PAYE and NSSA contributions.
One of the main ways of making it easier to do business is to bring as many regulations as possible into a single list for a new investor or a new business, not only making it simpler for someone to see what they are expected to do, but also making sure that they do not miss something considered critical and have some sort of inspector throwing their weight around later.
The Government is already untangling the regulations that have grown up in the food and agro-industry sectors, where there has to be a fairly substantial health and safety component and where regulations from several State and local government entities have been added over the decades.
The result should be a streamlined and single set that ensures the safety of customers and staff. And the combining will allow the fees, largely there to cover the costs of testing and inspecting, to be reduced since so many tests and inspections can be combined.
Even where different entities have to be involved, such as registration with employment councils and with Zimra, it should be possible to have their requirements on the same list as everything else when a new investor is making inquiries and wants to know precisely what they are expected to do.
This allows the investor to see all costs and add them up and not be caught by surprise at something just turning up later.
But it should be possible to go further and start having the person behind the desk representing all agencies, so that someone wanting to open a business sees just one person at one desk and can fix all the required steps in one go.
Coupled with a properly run grievance scheme, which has now been turned from a theory into something practical, this streamlining will make business as easy as possible.
