Govt lacking tact in its re-engagement

20 Apr, 2018 - 00:04 0 Views

eBusiness Weekly

Diamonds and Dogs
Delta Corporation, quite easily, is this week’s star performer. The beverages giant this week gave a trading update showing significant growth in both revenue and volumes for the last quarter to March 2018.

Revenue for the quarter was up 52 percent while volume was up 51 percent.

Revenue for FY2018 was up 18 percent. What makes this performance worth the praise is that it was volume driven with the company being able to push more products than it did prior year comparative. Also into consideration is that this is the beverages company’s first revenue growth since FY2014.

The Group also declared a full year dividend of 7,2 cents up from 5,45 cents that was declared prior year comparative. The market reacted positively with the counter closing 7,3 percent firmer on Tuesday after the release of the trading update and put on a further 3,62 percent to 187,77 cents yesterday.

Government was, however, disappointing. For a country that is open for business, there are so many missteps from President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Government. Controversy continues to shroud some of its dealings and decisions (read Zim Airways and Geiger) which in our view is a result of the country not having a clear policy, late alone strategy for its re-engagement programmes.

One mistake that Government is making is to think that its officials and ministers are the only ones who should be in the know on where we should be heading as a country. We continue to see the same faces, the RBZ governor, the Minister of Finance and of course the President being at the forefront of the re-engagement processes.

But without involving the whole nation, their attempts might end up being futile — as there will be a disconnect between high ranking government officials and those who actually do the work. The re-engagement process should be a shared vision to which every Zimbabwean within and outside our borders should be able to articulate what it is that we mean when we say the country is open for business.

From individuals to institutions, there is need to have a common strategy and clear policies with everybody pulling in the same direction.

But that has not been the case. Just this week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sibusiso Moyo and RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya met with 60 Wall St fund managers and institutional investors interested in allocating capital to Zimbabwe.

But one has to ask why key institutions such as the Security and Exchange Commission, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, FinSec and the Zimbabwe Investment Authority were not part of such discussions and yet they are the ones who can clearly articulate the investment environment in the country.

Probably we should take notes from South Africa where President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed five people — four special envoys and one new economic adviser – tasked with seeking out and meeting with investors ahead of a major investment conference to take place in August or September.

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