Prison labour proposed to cut costs

Presenting a paper at the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce annual congress here last Wednesday, the managing director of TN Holdings, Mr Tawanda Nyambirai, said the Government should consider allowing prisoners to provide labour to essential services to cut down labour costs.

Since the introduction of the multiple currencies, most companies have been struggling to pay workers as salaries became a major component of the production costs.

“We need to use prisoners and therefore the need to talk to the Government to ensure a system is developed were companies in distress can receive labour for free. That can account for a significant cost-saving. At the same time there will be something in it for the prisoners and for the companies,” he said.

Mr Nyambirai also said the Inclusive Government had failed dismally to revive the economy as the parties involved were more concerned with power.

He said because of this, distressed companies especially those in Bulawayo would remain troubled because of lack of commitment from the Government at a time when banks will not commit their finances in a free for all economy.

In a presentation titled, “Accessing re-finance for financially distressed enterprises,” Mr Nyambirai said it was unfortunate that the Inclusive Government was focusing too much on politics and not economic issues where they can reach consensus.

“There are issues where they can reach consensus like the compensation of people who lost life savings as a result of the actions done by GNU. There should be a framework for vulnerable people, pensioners who are now living like paupers because of the actions of the GNU. Instead of focusing on policies which they can reach a consensus they are focusing on power sharing and power transfer which they are failing to reach a consensus,” said Mr Nyambirai.

He said there were high expectations that the Inclusive Government would address the issue of distressed companies.

“Companies are distressed mainly due to the reasons which are not of their making. The shortage of finance to racapitalise was as a result of dollarisation that was caused by the GNU. Dollarisation contributed to the state of distress of enterprises and that has been compounded by the fact that there is little or no funding being received from the Government,” he said.

Mr Nyambirai said there was great need to place cash in the hands of the people so that they support industry.

“Industry is now being forced to be innovative and they are limping alone and hopefully that will last. In the case of Matabeleland province, there will be problems for the distressed companies because there is no capital to fund the companies. Some finances were promised but nothing has come up. Bankers cannot put (resources) in a free for all (programme). They are trained not to do so and told not to do so,” he said.

“Bankers won’t give the money, even the money promised by the Government has not come out.”

He also said there was also a problem where people wanted to divide Zimbabwe on where one was from, adding that the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo had asked him personally to do away with dividing the country.

“I once sat down with the late Joshua Nkomo and he said the country was being divided on grounds of where one was born and the language that person speaks. He said that was wrong and said people should be like whites who consider Zimbabwe as one country. White people support each other and we should do the same. Zimbabwe is the best irrespective of where a province might be. Let us embrace this important principle left by the likes of the late Vice-President Nkomo and other great nationalists,” he said.