adminTN Holdings chief executive Mr Tawanda Nyambirai told the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce annual congress that opened in Victoria Falls on Wednesday that it was time to be innovative and consider raising funds from social and religious networks and pool their resources to fill the void caused by the liquidity challenges facing the economy.
In a presentation entitled “Accessing Re-finance for Financially Distressed Enterprises”, Mr Nyambirai — who also owns a commercial bank — said local banks could not easily come up with facilities to bail out companies in distress.
“It’s time that we woke up to reality and realise that the formal banking structure does not have money that is appropriately priced to bail out distressed companies.
“As an economy we continue experiencing liquidity challenges emanating from an array of problems compounded by the lack of a banker of the last resort. What this means is that after the Government has collected revenue, it is supposed to go to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as the banker to Government.
“Banks are also supposed to bank with the RBZ so that in the event that depositors demand their money which they would have lent to other clients, they could easily turn to the option of borrowing from the RBZ.
“Unfortunately, we do not have such a properly managed structure and that is the reason why facilities for distressed companies offered by banks remain expensive.”
Mr Nyambirai has distinguished himself as an outstanding entrepreneur who has managed to blend his banking, furniture and retail businesses over the past three years.
“Imagine how much could be mobilised from the followers of Prophet (Emmanuel) Makandiwa, for instance? All you need to do is tell the congregants that the funds
they would have contributed was their money that could be lent to struggling businesses with a portion going for the upkeep of ‘the man of God’.
“We need to close ranks and if we could leverage on those members and each one contributes say US$5, how much can you mobilise?”
Mr Nyambirai said this concept could easily be spread out to various congregations around the country and bring the much desired relief to the many distressed companies that continue to cry out to the formal banking sector.
He said such funds would not only be available to distressed companies, but also other enterprising individuals that were failing to get affordable finance to start businesses.
He also called for the development of more efficient cost models to help local manufacturers to remain competitive in the face of cheap imports, particularly from the East.
“We are expected to compete against such companies from countries whose legislation supports their production systems. Our labour laws here are so rigid and as
members of the International Labour Organisation, we are expected to meet the minimum labour standards.
“The solution is for us to look at more cost-effective structures that will still make our products competitive,” he said.
The TN Holdings boss suggested the use of prison labour as a way of reducing labour costs for companies in distress as labour constituted a large portion of production costs.
He also urged local businesspeople to also consider synergies as a way to overcome some of the challenges they were facing.
Online Reporter