Pageant hangs in balance

costs involved.
A whopping US$450 000 was gobbled up during last year’s beauty pageant which was attended by beauties from Ghana, Malawi, Zambia and Botswana.

In his remarks at the colourful Miss Zimbabwe prize-giving ceremony held last week, Karikoga Kaseke, the ZTA boss, said they were seriously considering returning the pageant to the Miss Zimbabwe Trust, the previous organisers.

“We are most likely not to continue with this pageant. We are not able to continue bearing the costs associated with running the pageant because they are too high. We are a statutory body which gets its funding from the Treasury,” Kaseke said.

He, however, urged other corporates and individuals to support the pageant.
“We want to see other companies supporting the event because if they don’t, we will have no option but to surrender back the pageant to Kiki Divaris (the Miss Zimbabwe Trust patron,” he said.

In an interview with Zimbojam, an online lifestyle magazine, Divaris declined to comment saying she could only do so after discussing the matter with the ZTA.
“We are yet to discuss this with Mr Kaseke but what I can say is if it wasn’t for the Government’s involvement this beauty show would have collapsed,” she said.

With the winners of the pageant getting top-of-the range cars like BMWs and Mercedes-Benz this means that an estimated US$1 million was splashed out to host the Miss Zimbabwe 2010.

About US$500 000 was spent on the contest while the sponsors contributed goods and services worth over US$300 000. Some of the major sponsors were Rainbow Tourism Group, which provided the venue and accommodation for various Miss Zimbabwe functions, including the final pageant.

Other platinum sponsors include Philip Chiyangwa’s Glory Car Hire, Pathfinder Transport, Air Zimbabwe, Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe, Nigerian businessman Chief Okeke aka Igwee, Zimbabwe International Travel and Tours and the National Parks and Wildlife Authority.

Notable at the ceremony was Chief Okeke who was showered with praises by the audience that screamed “Igwee!!!!!!” at the mere mention of his name.
The Nigerian “Igwee” has donated top-of-the range cars to the beauty queens for the last four years.

This was a significant contribution since ZTA started organising the pageant.
The previous queens have had the pleasure of driving in facility cars, which were then sold to them after their reigns.

This was in line with empowering the girl child as well as attracting some of the brilliant brains to take part in the pageant. Since its inception in the days of Rhodesia, the Miss Zimbabwe beauty queens never used to get cars as prizes for winning the titles.

Miss Rhodesia became Miss Zimbabwe in 1980 when the country attained its independence and has run on-and-off ever since.
Miss Zimbabwe 2010 Malaika Mushandu won a BMW 3 series, among a host of other fabulous prizes while Miss Tourism Zimbabwe, Rumbidzai Mudzengerere, won a Mercedes-Benz Kompressor and Lisa Morgan, the Miss Universe Zimbabwe, got a sport Toyota Celica.

In addition, the three winners will be given fully furnished accommodation courtesy of ZTA.
Miss G-Tide Face of Zimbabwe Kimberly Cole got a Toyota Corolla.

The Miss Zimbabwe pageant has traditionally relied on corporate sponsorship. However, as the country went through economic challenges, most companies, which used to sponsor the event could not do so as they had other pressing issues.

But ZTA has made sure that the pageant went without glitches in the past four years.
Be that as it may in other countries like South Africa and Botswana, the national beauty pageants like the Miss South Africa and Miss Botswana are heavily sponsored by corporates such as MTN.

And the prizes have also included brand new vehicles as well as huge cash injections and jewellery.
Add to this, most beauty pageants in the region like the Miss Zambia are not organised by Government authorities but by trusts.

It is one thing for ZTA to surrender the pageant to the trust and another to fund-raise for the event.
What needs to be done is to ensure that the pageant is well organised so that it in turn attractsthe sponsorship that it deserves.

We have seen how ZTA effectively used the Miss Zimbabwe for its perception management of the country.
That should be used as a selling point to would-be sponsors. To some extent, the Miss Zimbabwe has become a brand and blue-chip companies should be engaged in such national events.

The ZTA have done their part and surely it is time other Zimbabwean companies do the same.