President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is not doing enough to improve the ease of doing business in Zimbabwe and this has affected local production, stakeholders have said.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president Tamuka Macheka said the government has not invested enough in infrastructural development and this has made investing in Zimbabwe more expensive than in any other country.
“We need to catch up with other developing countries that have done a lot in terms of infrastructural development. Our government has not done enough to improve that,” he said.
“We need to increase budget or capital expenditure in infrastructural development maybe by 3.5% going upwards maybe to 5 % but this has not been done.”
Macheka was addressing stakeholders who attended the 4th National Public Procurement Conference today.
He continued saying when people want to do business in Zimbabwe they have to go through a lot of processes like building roads, installing water supply as well as electricity before they actually start production and this has inflated production costs for companies.
Macheka added that the business climate has not improved because the country still lags behind in infrastructural development.
Martin Chingaira, chief executive officer of Construction Industry Federation of Zimbabwe (CIFOZ) bemoaned that the process of securing a tender in Zimbabwe was a minefield dominated by kick-backs.
The call by local producers comes barely two days after President ED Mnangagwa blasted the Minister of Justice and legal parliamentary affairs Ziyambi Ziyambi for not doing enough to improve the ease of doing business in Zimbabwe.
“I see that the minister of Justice (Ziyambi Ziyambi) who chairs the inter-ministerial taskforce on the ease of doing business is relaxing,” Mnangagwa said, adding: “I don’t want you to relax but please don’t relax”
