Sedco embarks on SMEs training programme

resource capacity of enterprises to ensure that they are efficiently and effectively managed.
Sedco acting general manager Mr Stanslous Makusha said the main thrust was to conduct training in disciplines such as strategic, marketing and financial management.
Mr Makusha, who was addressing an SMEs workshop in Masvingo last week, said this would enable them to appreciate the responsibility of running an enterprise and the legal obligations of a business.
“We believe any SME support initiative should be put across as a total package. By this we mean that we should look at the financial, infrastructural and human resources components.
“Let me highlight to you that Sedco is geared at supporting SMEs in all the three SME support components that I have highlighted,” said Mr Makusha.
He emphasised that the main objectives of the programme was to build human capacity to effectively run and manage business enterprises in Zimbabwe and to facilitate the emergence of viable and efficient business enterprises that will positively contribute towards economic growth and employment creation.
“There is need to offer a platform for participating companies to network, share ideas and experiences and to ensure that enterprises are able to timously meet their borrowing obligations,” he said.
He added that the training was in line with Sedco’s mandate to ensure that the path to growth of SMEs is smoothened and accelerated.
This, he said, would only be possible by focusing the right mixture of the necessary fundamental variables to achieve the growth of SMEs
“As small- and medium-scale enterprises, your efforts should continue to attract increasing and deeper recognition. This is mainly because the sector that you all represent holds the key to Zimbabwe’s current and future development.
“The SMEs sector employs at least 80 percent of the country’s total labour force.
“The sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product, although no reliable statistics are available, is highly significant.
“It is only after we have nurtured our small- and medium-scale enterprises, that they can grow into large corporations employing even greater numbers of workforce contributing even more significantly to national output and employment creation,” he said.
Mr Makusha said despite the prevailing challenges, they have made significant milestones offering loans for project funding.
He, however, stressed that these funds were for the current and future generations of entrepreneurs, and as such it was incumbent upon each and every beneficiary to ensure that they pay back the loaned amounts with the requisite interest.
This was critical to ensure that the SME fund revolves for the benefit of others still to be supported.
He said Sedco had supported the construction and provision of factory space for small- and medium-scale enterprises, notable examples being Nyika Growth Point, Gweru (Mkoba), Chitungwiza and Gazaland in Harare.
He added that the factory spaces had proved to be highly beneficial to SMEs to the extent that quite a significant number of enterprises hadgraduated, therefore moving out of these and establishing their own viable enterprises elsewhere in the country.
“Sedco is always ready to assist in realising business aspirations or vision and looks forward to a long and fruitful working relationship,” he said.