adminShepias Dube and Mesabe Ncube Sunday News Reporters
GOVERNMENT will compel local authorities and other taxing agencies to reduce charges to small and medium enterprises as a way of promoting players in the sector now considered a source of livelihood for more than half the population. In an interview Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development Minister Cde Sithembiso Nyoni said she met officials from the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing on Thursday where it was agreed that local authorities must lead in promoting SMEs.
“I can confirm that we had a meeting with local government to discuss ways of improving the welfare of SMEs to ensure that they are efficiently and productively run,” she said.
“We made it clear that the licence fees for SMEs are prohibitive and need to be revised if we are serious about building the capacity of small and up-and-coming businesses. We are pleased that Dr Ignatius Chombo pledged to co-operate with us in ensuring that the fees are realistic and conducive to business,” she said.
She said local authorities were implementing partners of SMEs who play a major role in infrastructure development and the issuing of licences hence the need to engage them. A survey by Sunday News revealed that local authorities charge licence fees between $75 and $1 500 per half year yet most businesses hardly make profits of more than $400 a month.
A businesswoman, Mrs Sarah Tryphine Munemo, who operates a lodge at Zaka Growth Point in Masvingo, said she pays licence fees of up to $800 per month not only to the local authority by other agencies.
“This is absolutely unrealistic for a business which rarely realises a profit of $400 considering that I have to pay more to other departments such as the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and National Social Security Authority,” she said.
Cde Nyoni said she was also engaging Zimra and NSSA to ensure that the concerns of SMEs were considered by all stakeholders. On the issue of infrastructure development the minister said local authorities had assured her that plans were under way to construct safe and secure structures to house small businesses.
“As we are talking Harare City Council has approved plans for the construction of a business complex which is expected to accommodate more than 6 000 SMEs. We want to do away with the culture of selling our goods at undesignated areas which are often unsafe and unhealthy,” she said.
This is not limited to Harare alone as some local authorities like Bulawayo City Council have since identified land for the construction of market bays for SMEs. However, the minister said this was not enough and a lot needed to be done to improve the status of SMEs.
“Money should be paid for services rendered, as it is local authorities have been demanding a lot of money from the poor and yet they are not doing enough.”
She, however, praised Masvingo Province where Masvingo City Council and some SMEs are working on a partnership with a foreigner investor which will see massive upgrade of infrastructure for small traders in the city.
Meanwhile, at a meeting in Bulawayo last week Cde Nyoni told various small to medium players that they needed to register their businesses so that they could be accommodated in Government programmes meant to help them.
Director of the Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy Association (ZCIEA), Mr Thabang Nare said some associations were proposing that Government passes a vendors’ Bill to compel registration in line with the formalisation of the informal sector. SMEs account for more than 70 percent of the country’s unemployed population.
Bongani Ndlovu