Source: Buy Zim calls for quick economic action – DailyNews Live
Tabitha Mutenga 8 August 2018
HARARE – Local lobby group Buy Zimbabwe is calling on the new
administration to focus on the country’s economic turnaround by addressing
the huge import bill, the three tier pricing system and putting into
effect the local content policy.
“Now that the elections have come and gone, it’s time for business, not as
usual. Buy Zimbabwe is hoping that the new government will seek to
address issues that have been affecting business to run smoothly and
supporting the buy local mantra,” Buy Zimbabwe said in a statement.
“Buy Zimbabwe expects the following: To address the huge import bill, take
into effect the local content policy and to do away with the three tier
pricing system.”
At the beginning of the year, Buy Zimbabwe crafted a new strategy that
seeks to improve the development and ascendancy of Zimbabwe to a
world-class nation with pride, wealth and jobs.
Buy Zimbabwe also called on the new government to put in place a robust
and efficient public sector that will drive employment and improve
standards of living, and ultimately impact positively on the private
sector for sustained economic growth.
“The government should also create the right, consistent and conducive
environment for business to thrive, an improved operating environment, and
for positive and enlightened consumer engagement and for increased and
expanded market access in commerce and industry sector and assist in
creating and preserving current jobs, create opportunities for new jobs
while improving the employee welfare,” Buy Zimbabwe said.
Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is above 90 percent, but the latest official
Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency data puts the jobless figure at 6,6
percent.
“Government should also foster company prosperity on the back of sustained
local production, import substitution, increased exports, increased local
consumption of goods and services, broader and deeper backward and forward
linkages and better public sector performance and stamp out corruption.”
Corruption has become rampant and embedded in Zimbabwe such that it has
become the scourge of economic development agenda. It is said to be the
single major threat to the country’s socioeconomic development and
progress.
Between 30 percent and 50 percent of the gross domestic product is being
gobbled up by graft, especially from public sector, corruption watchdog
Transparency International Zimbabwe recently said.
To fight corruption, President Emmerson Mnangagwa created a special
anti-corruption unit in his office to improve efficiency in the fight
against all forms of graft and to strengthen the effectiveness of national
mechanisms for the prevention of corruption.
Buy Zimbabwe has become more relevant to Zimbabwe’s development paradigm
over the years and has consistently engaged its stakeholders to emphasise
the “make local and buy local” initiative.
– The Financial Gazette
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