daniel chigunwe
Zimbabwean contractors have the equipment and skills required to do first-class work when it comes to creating, upgrading and rehabilitating roadworks and there can be no excuse for substandard or shoddy work.
The Second Republic switched from seeking tenders from foreign companies to wanting to allocate the huge roads programme it embarked on six years ago to local firms, on the basis that the local contractors were up to the job and so the Government could support local industry, and ensure that these local companies could grow, and still bring in the required work at below foreign prices so saving the nation money.
While almost all the work done so far on national highways and arterial roads and side roads in urban area has been to acceptable standards, there have been cases where slipshod work has been presented to Government, with the result that the contractor was not going to be paid until the proper quality work was redone.
Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development Felix Mhona was very clear this week that his Ministry would not sign off on any contracted work, and so authorise payment, until the expected quality was reached.
Interestingly, he was speaking, while commissioning a stretch of dual carriageway along Nemakonde Way, done properly by one of the contractors who has had some previous work rejected.
Fairly obviously, the problem was not inability by the contractor, which has several successful Government contracts under its belt, but the dubious quality control by its own management.
This is an important aspect that all Zimbabwean businesses need to follow as they develop and grow, ensuring that they produce and create quality products and quality work all the time.
A company’s reputation rests on its last order, its last contract, and so quality control has to be unremitting.
Just because a company is owned by locals and is based in Zimbabwe should not excuse low-quality or substandard work on Government contracts.
The Second Republic, rightly, wants to see Zimbabwean businesses advance, but it also has to ensure that the taxpayers get a good deal, and that includes both a fair price and quality work.
There have been cases of Zimbabwean firms overpricing products and work done, and that had to be combated by new rules issued by the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion which demanded first of all that the relevant line ministry certified the work both as to quality and value for money, and secondly that the contractor could justify the invoice rendered.
This caused a degree of anguish among some businesses who had to hurriedly dig up all their documentation and submit this, and if they found they had “made a mistake” to quickly recalculate the pricing and resubmit. The Treasury did report that a significant majority of Government contracts did give value for money, but that there was a minority who did not and these had to reform.
Anyone wanting to see how moving quality control into the centre of business and industry needs only look at Japan.
In the early 1950s an American, W Edwards Deming, was trying to preach high quality back home, and not really getting anywhere.
Japanese industrialists rebuilding after the destruction of World War II were interested and invited him over, and combining his ideas with their own created a quality culture that drove the dramatic expansion of the Japanese economy.
Few are now old enough to remember the days when the label “Made in Japan” had connotations of the second rate or worse, so thorough was the switch to placing quality at the centre of the whole process, with the multi-faceted “kaizen” concept, which involved all employees, keeping this relentless pressure on quality.
This is already important for Zimbabwe, and will become ever more important.
President Mnangagwa in Seoul this week for the South Korea-Africa Summit is making a major appeal for investors to look at Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular for technology transfer and processing African raw materials all the way to finished products in Africa.
There are advantages for the investor as well as Zimbabwe, with the investor being able to meet the rules of origin for the African Continental Free Trade Area as so being able to access the huge common African market that is being created.
This is one of the reasons why Tsingshan has built the Manhize steelworks in Zimbabwe, benefiting the country and the company.
Zimbabwe can attract this sort of investment and technology transfer, but only if Zimbabwean workers and Zimbabwean business partners and suppliers are relentless over attaining and maintaining quality.
For Zimbabwe, with its well-educated population and rich endowment of raw materials, to benefit fully from AfCFTA, it must produce the sort of products and services that can sell across the continent, and quality and good value for money will be the two criteria, basically the only criteria, that matter.
What possibly irritated Minister Mhona the most when his technical experts had to reject a pair of roadworks, was that the contractors had actually presented this work for inspection knowing, as they must have done, that it was not their usual standard.
They should have realised early on, been honest and declared a delay as they fixed what needed to be fixed, and then presented the high-quality work they were capable of.
That at least would have preserved their reputation. We hope they have learned their lesson and others are determined not to fall into the same error.
Online Reporter