THE Africa Development Bank (AfDB) has asked the Zimbabwean government to be proactive in the resuscitation of the economy before taking its begging bowl to foreign financial institutions.
BY OWN CORRESPONDENT
Speaking during an AfDB-World Bank joint tour of Bata Shoe Company and Zimglass in Gweru last week, AfDB Southern Africa executive director Mahomet Ratique Jasob Mahomet said the government needed to be stricter when crafting budgets and policies.
The tour was aimed at assessing the operations of key manufacturing industries in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces before mapping the way forward in the drive to revive the country’s ailing economy.
Bata and Zimglass are some of Gweru’s key firms with the capacity to create several downstream industries and generate employment. Bata currently has a workforce of 1 400 countrywide and has reduced its retail shops from 112 in the early 1990s to 50.
Mahomet said the government must come up with a raft of measures to lower its expenditure bill if a conducive business environment is to be created any time soon.
“Zimbabwe has to help itself first, the government is doing a lot by evaluating the policies, reforming, taking these reform processes further — which is key and basic for any success,” Mahomet said.
“It’s in the hands of the government of Zimbabwe to create a better business environment by lowering costs through different measures and processes, and in the same time to be more strict in terms of budgets, investments and production assets which will create a better business environment, better infrastructure oriented for reducing costs.”
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Mahomet told Southern Eye that most of the companies countrywide had the potential to steer economic recovery if the government embraced the private sector in its efforts.
“We have been seeing different companies and yes, Zimbabwe can, but for that we need to work all together — the government and the private sector — we have to operationalise the objectives in the ZimAsset with concrete measures and concrete results,” he said.
