adminMernat Mafirakurewa Business Editor
HOW many times were you told to work hard at school so you could go to university and thereafter secure a good job?
Maybe not all of you were nagged about it, but probably a good number of today’s generation of adults did.But a college degree, as many have come to discover, is no guarantee of a good career. On the flipside, there are many successful entrepreneurs who didn’t need college education to become millionaires.
Make no mistake, education is important. Many a time the more schooling one receives, the more successful one is likely to be in their chosen career path. In general, people who drop out or receive minimal education are probably doomed.
However, there are notable people that have managed to make it big without attaining much education such as Michael Dell – who dropped out of college at the age of 19 to start PC’s Limited, later renamed Dell Computers Inc.
Dell became the most profitable PC manufacturer in the world making him a billionaire.
Indeed, Spare Sithole, one of the most successful businessmen in Matabeleland South province – judging from his humble beginnings – can now testify that his career path was heading for the deep end during his nascent stages of life owing to lack of schooling.
Due to financial constraints faced by his parents, he only went as far as Grade 5 before leading a poor farm boy’s life in his rural district.
Sithole had to endure years of being employed in laborious and menial jobs in his rural homeland, starting off as a herd boy at a cattle ranching farm and then later as a gold digger at a local mine.
However, Sithole was to join the fight for the liberation of the country from colonial rule. He joined the Zimbabwe Para Military Forces in 1983 where he rose through the ranks to become a commander and later called time at the force in 1986.
Upon leaving the force, Sithole’s source of livelihood was largely peasantry up to 2003 when he decided to form a security company and as they say the rest is history.
He has defied the odds and pulled himself from the clutches of poverty and today he is admired by many for his business acumen.
Apart from being the owner of Para Reserve Security & Private Investigators, Sithole also owns supermarkets at Insiza District’s growth point, Filabusi, where the security firm’s headquarters are also based.
“My background in the military inspired me to form a security company. I told myself that I had what it takes to participate in enforcing law and order in the country as well as protecting its resources as I had once put my life on the line during the liberation struggle,” he said.
“Being successful in business doesn’t necessarily mean that one has to be very educated. As long as you adhere to basic business principles, which of course don’t need any form of schooling, you can obviously run an entity profitably. However, there is a need for you to employ professionals to oversee your accounts for the purposes of viability.”
Sithole intends to use his security firm as a springboard to grow his business empire.
Para Reserve Security & Private Investigators offers corporate and commercial guarding (armed and unarmed), 24-hour monitoring and armed response, neighbourhood patrol schemes and special events.
It has personnel manning various institutions in Filabusi, Esigodini and also managed to penetrate Gwanda, Gweru and Bulawayo markets.
“Just like any other company we intend to grow and as such we have set sights on spreading our tentacles to areas such as Beitbridge and Plumtree which are within our vicinity by virtue of being in Matabeleland South.
However, for the purposes of ensuring close monitoring of the infrastructure and a number of investments we are safeguarding, we don’t have any intention of exploring market opportunities beyond the Matabeleland region and the Midlands Province,” Sithole said.
He said the government should come up with programmes aimed at empowering businesses in rural areas.
“Rural development is linked to entrepreneurship. Institutions and individuals promoting rural development now see entrepreneurship as a strategic developmental intervention that could accelerate the rural development process and government should make concerted efforts to embrace this initiative,” said Sithole.
Just like most companies operating in Matabeleland, the Para Reserve Security & Private Investigators director said companies from this part of the country were overlooked in allocation of tenders by government departments and a number of non-governmental organisations headquartered in Harare but with operations locally.
“I think there is a need for government to intervene in the way tenders are being offered. You find a security company from Harare coming all the way to offer services here in Matabeleland South while we are being deprived of such opportunities,” said Sithole.
“The issue of depriving local companies business opportunities doesn’t augur well with our government’s efforts of empowering people within their locality. As it stands security companies from this part of the country are not even manning the Beitbridge and Plumtree border posts and this on its own is a very big anomaly.”
The astute businessman intends to diversify from the crowded retail market and tap into the spillovers from the lucrative gold sector in the district.
“Before the end of this year, I intend to install a gold ore milling plant as part of my efforts to boost my coffers. In so doing I will sell all my supermarkets because I think that market is now flooded,” Sithole said.
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