Political bickering blocking economic progress: Industry

Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
CAPTAINS of industry have expressed concern over the prevailing bickering within the main political parties, Zanu-PF and MDC formations, which they say has shifted government attention from the economic imperatives.

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) Matabeleland Chamber called a Press briefing in Bulawayo on Tuesday to express its displeasure over the increase in internal political squabbles at a time when the nation expects economic turnaround.

“As business, we’re concerned that political leaders are focusing more on political agendas at the expense of the economy and signs are already showing that during this festive season, demand will be very low, as low as between 20 percent and 23 percent,” CZI Matabeleland Chapter president Busisa Moyo said.

“Politics should not be allowed to suck up all the energy at the expense of the economy. We’ve got the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset), which as business together with political leaders we should focus on to develop the economy.”

With the ruling party Zanu-PF gearing for its elective congress early next month, party cadres have been at each other’s throats amid accusations of factionalism and jockeying for posts.

The MDC-T has also been battling internal revolt after last year’s July 31 crushing poll defeat, which saw the party break into two.

The recent congress has not solved things either after party leader Morgan Tsvangirai dumped some bigwigs and centralised power around himself.

Moyo said the prevailing political atmosphere had a negative bearing on economic progress and investment as he warned the scenario might result in a number of companies missing their tax quarterly payment deadlines for the first quarter in 2015 as their revenue base would be subdued due to low sales volumes during the coming festive season.

He said the government and the private sector should be preoccupied with working together in addressing the challenges facing the economy.

The business executives said the government should focus on finding solutions to funding bottlenecks, enhancing the ease of doing business, attracting investment, boosting increased domestic production output and saving companies from liquidation and judicial management.

“For example, the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco) has filed for liquidation. This has a lot of negative implications to the whole cotton industry value chain. Cottco has been giving inputs to about 300,000 cotton farmers, this effectively means cotton output will be affected, oil expressers and ginners as well as other downstream industries,” said Moyo.

He said the incessant power cuts, ageing machinery and poor transport network had seen companies incurring high costs of production.

“We’re also concerned that rail transport costs need to be bench marked correctly for industries to become competitive.

“The financial services sector should also charge interest rates that are below 10 percent with the loans having tenure of between three years and five years as factory refurbishments among other activities require monies that have a longer horizon,” Moyo said.

He commended the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) for giving companies a tax amnesty. “As business, we see that as a positive development. We had actually requested for that (amnesty) in various business quotas and we want to encourage business to take up the moratorium,” Moyo said.

He also applauded the Bulawayo City Council for offering companies in the city a 50 percent discount on rates.

The council had extended the grace period for companies to settle their outstanding levies by three months to September, after the previous offer provided $1,2 million relief to local firms but companies sought an extension up to next month.

In January this year, BCC announced a cocktail of incentives among them a once-off 50 percent discount on amounts owed if the arrears were settled before June 30 in a bid to ease the burden on Bulawayo’s struggling industries.

It also relaxed its intensive water rationing schedule and waived penalties and interest rates on accounts owing.