How Zimbabwe can revive industry and end its cash crisis

Mr. Speaker Sir, we are also incentivising things like tobacco, which is seasonal.  After we have reaped all our tobacco, what else will bring in foreign currency?  It is a seasonal crop and once it is reaped and sold, it is done.  Therefore, we will only earn foreign currency from tobacco over a certain period.

There are some people who believe that industry is improving, that is capacity utilisation, I was listening to the Minister of Industry and Commerce the other day.  Mr. Speaker Sir, my recollection is that, there is very little capacity utilisation that has improved, mainly because it was said that we are now producing cooking oil.  We are not producing cooking oil at all.  We are actually repackaging what is produced outside. If we talk of Delta Beverages, they are one of the major industries that remain in the country, but what are they doing?  Everything is coming from outside the country, including the bottle tops.  What is locally produced is only water.  Mr. Speaker Sir, as long as we just think about bond notes and incentives, it will not work.  I think the Minister’s focus must be to target industries and see how best we can improve our industries in terms of productivity.  Incentivising three companies that continue to produce will not work.  I wish the Hon. Minister would one day find time to move around Bulawayo, most of the industrial complexes, especially on a weekend, have been turned to church halls now.  There is very little activity going on.

Mr. Speaker Sir, what should we do?  My proposal is that, because we are literally importing everything in the kitchen, the Minister should consider targeting a few kitchen commodities that are used by women when they cook in the kitchen, because those are the major things that we are importing.  They should then introduce an import tax, even if it means 5%.  I was doing my computation and consulting with other economists.  Our import bill is about US$6 billion and if we tax 5% on US$6 billion, we get about US$300 000 and that money is channelled to local industries so that there is improvement in their capacity utilisation.  We will reopen those industries and we give them the modalities on how it can be done.

However, if we unveil US$300 000 per year, we will have more than 100 industries producing.  Once our own industries start producing, we will see them exporting.  We have good quality commodities like Mazoe which is not comparable to any product in the region.  However, we need to capacitate those industries so that they export and definitely, we will have more foreign currency.

Mr. Speaker Sir, the other thing is about ZISCO Steel.  I have always argued that if ZISCO Steel is resuscitated, we will solve almost half of our problems in the country.  This is because if ZISCO Steel starts operating, automatically Hwange Colliery will start moving and the National Railways of Zimbabwe will also start operating.  What will ZISCO Steel do?  If it starts operating, the fertilizer price of ammonium nitrate will definitely go down because ZISCO Steel subsidises Sable Chemicals through buying oxygen.  The mining industry will start operating, the cost of operations will be reduced because most of the dynamites used in the industries now are being imported from such countries as China, South Africa and others, which is moving foreign currency outside the country.  However, if ZISCO Steel was operational, explosives automatically follow because they are a by-product of the hydrogen produced at Sable Chemicals where Sable supports ZISCO Steel.  That will be helpful to us.

Continued next page

(468 VIEWS)