Kwekwe- Empowerment lobby group Business Economic Empowerment Forum (BEEF) has urged government to craft procurement procedures that are designed to benefit local companies through affording them a large quota in procurement of at least 80 percent.
Addressing delegates at the inaugural BEEF Midlands chapter consultative indaba here , BEEF president Solomon Matsa who is a businessman based in South Africa, said its not fair to seize 51 percent of someone’s company as it was bordered on abusing property ownership rights.
“We are trying to create a system where the Government will create quotas. We don’t want the old situation whereby they are saying one has a 51 percent holding in someone’s company. As Beef we think it’s not fair, it will just create more problems. Rather, we are saying if our Chinese friends are doing business in our country, give us 80 percent of your procurement,” he said.
“We are saying whatever you buy must be from Zimbabwean companies so that you can manufacture what you want and sell to our people and make a profit. We don’t want to be involved in their profits. We want to be involved in their procurement. On those quotas we want to ensure that we also spread the cake we don’t want to have one entity having one business throughout the country alone we want companies to breakdown the cake,” he added.
He said his organisation’s mandate was to complement government efforts in economic revival and embrace the ‘Zim is Open For Business’ mantra that President Emmerson Mnangagwa coined in the Second Republic.
“The reason why we came up with this organisation was that we realised that over the 37 years of the previous Government, politics ran without business so we decided that we now needed politics to run with business and coincidentally our current President (Emmerson) Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe is Open for Business, which really resonates with our idea of Beef,” he said.
He also encourage business to desist from dependency syndrome and over reliance with government but rather assist government in the economic revival path.
“Of course government plays a major role in economic revival journey but as businesses we must not just sit dow and look at government support for funding all the time, we need to devices ideas that generate income as we complement government efforts,” said Matsa.
BEEF was formed in 2018 with the aim of collaborating with the Government to tackle a number of challenges facing the economy.
The president Matsa is deputised by Ms Judith Mbewe who is based in Switzerland. Other BEEF executive members include Mr Gilbert Mafuku (secretary general) and Mr Tinashe Gurajena (treasurer general).
Meanwhile, delegates drawn from all sectors of the economy were engaged in business and economic growth debates and were treated to some entertainment and dinner, courtesy of Matsa.
