admin
Factmore Dzobo
WHEN Peter Muzenda completed his diploma in carpentry and joinery at the Bulawayo Polytechnic in 1995, he worked for a number of big companies in Bulawayo as a carpenter. Armed with his trade qualifications, he thought he would continue to be an employee for the rest of his life. As fate would have it, Muzenda was left jobless after one of the companies he worked for closed shop.
However, for Muzenda necessity was the mother of invention. Instead of being an employee, he is now an employer after he set up his own small furniture factory shop that is fast growing beyond his earlier expectations.
For Muzenda, the closure of companies as a result of economic meltdown during the hyperinflation era came as a blessing in disguise, as this pushed him to venture into a self-help project.
“The companies which I once worked for closed sometime in 2008 and 2009. I was left jobless. I started to apply my carpentry skills and experience by making sofas, wardrobes and kitchen tables,” said Muzenda, now the managing director of Muzenda Carpentry and Joinery, a thriving medium size business in Makokoba suburb.
He started the business from his home in Cowdray Park, Bulawayo, suburb using a few manual tools he bought while he was still at work.
“I used to repair sofas and made wardrobes for people in the suburbs but after some furniture shop- owners were impressed with some of my products they started to give me orders. It was then that I started to employ and train people in carpentry and joinery to meet the overwhelming demand,” he said.
Muzenda Carpentry and Joinery, according to Muzenda, is growing and has already engaged six workers who are helping him.
“In a month we make five wardrobes and 10 sets of kitchen tables which we supply to some furniture shops in town. Each wardrobe costs between $300 to $600 and sofas ranges from $400 to $500 depending on the size and type. We made arrangements with the shop-owners to sell on our behalf and in return they put a markup as part of their profit,” he said.
Muzenda Carpentry and Joinery is a classic example of one of the thriving SMEs that are rapidly emerging, taking advantage of the closure of some formal industries to become big employers in and around Bulawayo.
With many industries closing shop in Bulawayo, SMEs are promising to fill the gap. Of late, a number of SMEs have emerged as many people realise that being an employee is no longer paying a living wage while workers in some companies have gone for several months without salaries.
The SMEs sector in Zimbabwe now accounts for about 90 percent of the country’s employable population and needs government and private sector assistance to secure more funding.
Dzingai Thomas, a plumber by profession who also juggles as a welder, operates a medium sized wheel- barrow making business in Makokoba. He said his business has been sustaining him for the past 10 years.
He, however, bemoaned the lack of financial assistance and a bigger space to operate from as the business continues to grow.
“I will never think of going back to work as an employee. What we only need is financial assistance and factory space so that we can operate as a large company with enough resources and be able to meet the overwhelming demand,” said Thomas.
SMEs account for 70 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to a Zimbabwe Statistical Agency (Zimstat) 2013 survey.
In Bulawayo, about 90 percent of workers are now into the informal sector as a result of the closure of many industries in the city.
Economic analysts say it is important to allocate more resources to the informal sector which is filling the gap left by companies that have either closed shop or scaled down operations.
“The informal business is now the hub of businesses especially in Bulawayo. Many people ventured into various informal businesses filling the gap of the closed industries. If these SMEs get enough government support through the provision of loans, the country’s economy will be revived again,” said Weston Sibanda, a local economic analyst.
SMEs are increasingly being recognised as productive drivers of economic growth. They are empowering and creating employment and assisting the country’s new economic blueprint Zim-Asset to achieve its set targets.
The Minister of Small to Medium Enterprises Development, Cde Sithembiso Nyoni, said the SMEs sector was providing solutions not only to employment problems in Bulawayo but to availability of wares on the local market. She said there is a need for training and enough funding to make the informal sector move.
Cde Nyoni also said people had become innovative and were coming up with their own inventions and applying their educational skills to boost productivity in the different sectors of the economy.
She said small businesses must learn the importance of branding and labelling their products as a way of creating names to penetrate regional and international markets.
Most SMEs are faced with many challenges in accessing funding or loan facilities from financial institutions because of a number of reasons, mainly collateral.
It has been noted that most SMEs do not have bank accounts and are not playing their part in contributing towards the fiscus despite having the potential to lead the economic growth of the country.
With more effort directed towards their growth from all the stakeholders concerned, SMEs have the potential to change the quality of life for millions of Zimbabweans.
Online Reporter