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Njabulo Bhebe, Business Reporter
BULAWAYO Chamber of Small to Medium Enterprises (BCSMEs) is working on securing decent working spaces for its members as one of its initiatives aimed at formalising their operations.
BCSMEs chairperson Mr Energy Majazi said SMEs’ poor working space has over the years impacted negatively on their prospects of keeping their enterprises as going concerns as well as attracting potential customers. He said spurred by that, the organisation had started the process of seeking alternative and proper working space for its members.
“As an organisation we are trying to promote the growth of our members through securing proper working space for them. We are also working towards ensuring that the buildings most of whom operate from are given some facelift and as such we have a number of them that are being renovated within the Central Business District. Currently we have around 600 SMEs that have left working from their backyards and started operation in more formalised working spaces and we expect an increase since working from their homes has of late become more expensive given electricity and fuel shortages,” said Mr Majazi.
He said working in decent working spaces would also play a big part in enabling SMEs to formalise their operations.
“We know of a few SMEs that have formalised their operations and are paying taxes. We hope through coming up with proper working spaces we are going to see more and more SMEs coming forward to formalise their activities, something which we have been clamouring for our members as an organisation,” said Mr Majazi.
Most SMEs are not registered, with a recent survey carried out by FinScope Zimbabwe showing that only 15 percent of them were registered. There have been numerous cries for the formalisation of the SMEs sector to be done so as to access external market benefits.
According to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) about 16 000 SMEs registered to formalise operations of their businesses last year. Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni said Government was committed in improving working space for SMEs.
“As Government we are aware of the plight of SMEs and as a ministry, we will soon call for meetings with SMEs in the construction industry to ascertain their capacity to contribute towards the construction of infrastructure to house start-up businesses or other established SMEs involved in various sectors. We are also working with the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works to come up with a policy that will ensure there won’t be a township or residential area without any form of SMEs infrastructure,” she said.
Government is also looking forward to establishing SMEs incubation centres throughout the country to accelerate development of start-ups and fledging entrepreneurs to effectively impact on growth of the economy. President Mnangagwa launched the country’s first India-Africa incubation centre in Harare in February last year.
The incubation centre in Harare, which specialises in equipping young people with entrepreneurial skills to start own businesses, dovetails with President Mnangagwa’s vision of transforming the economy into an upper middle-income economy by 2030. The centre is equipped with 25 different technologies in food processing, engineering, brick making and paper processing. It has the capacity to accommodate 50 trainees per intake.
Over the past decade, Zimbabwe has witnessed the emergence and growth of SMEs mainly due to the high levels of unemployment in the country and the growth of the informal sector. The SMEs have mushroomed in various sectors of the economy ranging from farming to information and technology. Most of the small businesses are characterised by a small number of employees and limited finance. Challenges to do with securing funding, regulation, payment of taxes and stunted growth are common among most SMEs.
There has been also a major challenge of lack of adequate skills in the SMEs sector. Small businesses find it difficult to sell their products either due to poor packaging or marketing skills.
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