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Senior Business Reporter
SMALL and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have not fully utilised the technology centre installed at Bulawayo Polytechnic under the Indo-Zimbabwe project meant to promote their development.In 2009, Zimbabwe and India launched a $5 million Indo-Zim technology project for the development of SMEs in the country through the commissioning of state-of-the-art manufacturing technology centres in Harare and Bulawayo.
Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni has recognised the failure of local businesses to make use of the centres and encouraged SMEs to make use of the technology under the Indo-Zim project to substitute imports with locally manufactured products.
Bulawayo Chamber of SMEs organising secretary Energy Majazi told Business Chronicle on Monday that their members had not fully exploited the technology centre since its installation a few years ago.
“It is not like we do not want to make use of the technology centre at Bulawayo Polytechnic but we are discouraged to go there because at times we go there and we find no-one to operate the machines,” said Majazi.
“When the technology centre was established, we thought SMEs will be trained on how to operate the machines so that we serve ourselves but this is not the case.”
Fourteen other technological centres aimed at improving the quality of products such as grinding mills, ox-drawn ploughs have been established in different parts of the country including the Small Enterprises Development Corporation Centre in Chitungwiza.
In the past, due to lack of access to technology, products manufactured by SMEs were not competitive on the market.
Of late, the government has been making strides in ensuring SMEs adopt the latest technologies based on the realisation that the sector was an engine for economic growth.
The World Bank estimates that 5.7 million people in Zimbabwe are employed in the sector.
Online Reporter
Londile Moyo