The Sunday Mail
Zimbabwe is this month seeing out its successful tenure as Sadc Chair and will pass the baton to Botswana. Under President Mugabe’s leadership, the regional grouping registered major successes, among them establishing a new economic order via the Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap. The Sunday Mail Chief Reporter Kuda Bwititi spoke to Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha, who was in the thick of things during the strategy’s formative stages.
Below are excerpts of Minister Bimha’s reflections on a landmark year.
* * *
The Sadc Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap is one of the milestones we have achieved during our tenure as Sadc Chair. It is something we can be proud of and say, “We managed to do quite a really good job.”
However, there was serious resistance from some countries at the beginning.
It should be understood that although the regional bloc’s efforts have centred on regional integration, individual countries have, nonetheless, been fronting their own agendas. Because of this, member states were all about protecting their own individual interests. This played out during discussions on the Industrialisation Strategy when senior officials were meeting at the Victoria Falls Summit in August 2014.
That stalemate rolled over to the Council of Ministers and eventually, Heads of State and Government.
The bone of contention was precisely on market access versus industrialisation.
The argument by resisting countries was that we should finish market access first while Zimbabwe and others insisted industrialisation should take centre stage.
This debate took a lot of time. Even when the issue went to the Council of Ministers, there was no consensus.
President Mugabe – as Chair – then made an impassioned plea during one closed-door meeting in Victoria Falls.
This plea was very influential because he took members back to where Sadc started from; what it stood for and its objectives. He used his rich history to articulate important issues and convinced the Heads of State and Government that it was important to focus on the Industrialisation Strategy as it underscored all the objectives Sadc stood for.
In his own words, President Mugabe said we should “front load” industrialisation. It was as a result of the President’s intervention that other Heads of State agreed.
That was when members resolved to have a special Summit that would focus on industrialisation. This then led to the hosting of the Summit in Harare in May, and the Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap was adopted.
Before that, criteria were suggested and one criterion required each member state to assemble a team of experts, consultants and academia.
A number of meetings followed, leading to this special Summit. The strategy itself is about diversifying our economy; value-addition and beneficiation; technology and innovation.
A strategy is not an event, but a process. This is a process that will feed into the African Union’s Agenda 2063. It will also feed into the Free Trade Area and the Continental Free Trade Area.
And when all is said and done, it will be seen that Zim-Asset has no contradiction whatsoever with the Industrialisation Strategy. This is also about boosting intra-Africa trade. An important aspect about this drive is competitiveness where we focus on issues that we do better as a region. We look at value chains at regional level then at continental level to ensure Africa produces high quality goods and competes at global level.
Another issue is infrastructure; these are the enablers.
You cannot achieve anything without adequate infrastructure: power; water; roads and so forth. So, when we implement, we will be able to address our economic challenges. There will be increased production; our SMEs will grow and we will have more exports and greater trade will take place between and among African countries.
All this translates into economic growth.
We will become self-reliant; backed by a strong currency, which we will be able to sustain as it will be anchored on a strong economy supported by a robust regional economy.
When one looks at policies such as Zim-Asset and the Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap, one will understand that these interventions should be private sector-driven. I have appealed to the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, telling them that they should be better organised and put up a structure that drives industrialisation.
This should be done at national level for us to achieve the goal of the regional Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap as well as the continental agenda.
What these local bodies – CZI; Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe – should be able to do now is determine how they can organise themselves and come up with their own programmes.
They can then ask Government to facilitate. I have, therefore, asked the private sector to constitute itself so as to drive this issue and make it top their priorities.
After this, we will then be able to talk about implementation. So, in essence, it is about sharing this vision with everyone. All stakeholders need to know the role they should play.
The private sector is crucial to this drive. We have set the course as policy-makers; the onus is now on the private sector to intervene. As we speak, the Sadc secretariat is working on issues to do with implementation.
However, as a country, we are also focusing on implementation by making these stakeholder consultations and ensuring there is adequate awareness on all fronts.
