Go back to basics, says Schweppes

Tawanda Musaruwa

Although Zimbabwe’s doing business reforms are well underway, Schweppes managing director Charles Msipa says without basic facilities such as water and energy, the reforms have been seriously compromised.

Earlier this year, Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube outlined some ease of doing business reform milestones in his State of the Economy Report, which was presented in Parliament.

Some of the highlighted milestones included — procedures for property registration being reduced from five to four, the establishment of a credit registry, increase in the number of small claims courts from two to 10, the establishment of four commercial courts and a 41 percent reduction in compliance checkpoints at Beitbridge Border Post.

The reforms, which involve the removal of regulatory, transactional and administrative hurdles in doing business, were also said to have also received a major boost from Government’s legislative agenda which has already seen the passing of the Insolvency Bill as well as several other pieces of legislation including the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) Bill, which will ensure that all investments are processed under one roof.

But industrialists and experts are of the opinion that without adequate supplies for electricity for industry, the ease of doing business reforms may as well be dead in the  water.

“The objective of the (ease of doing business) is to improve the competitiveness of small to medium and large businesses; to improve the business climate and regulatory environment.

“I think that currently with the situation at hand, we have taken large steps backwards, we can’t even have basic facilities.

“We need to fix water, electricity . . . these are just basics before we get back to measuring how we are doing on protection of minority investors, for example. There is basic stuff we just need to address,” said the Schweppes boss.

“It’s been four years since we have been doing this ease of doing business programme and I think we need to pause and reflect on how far we have come, and how we can create a more organised framework around the doing business agenda.”