The Sunday Mail
Hon Sithembiso Nyoni
The Co-ordination Committee for Development and Promotion of African Handicrafts (Codepa) is an organisation that co-ordinates handicrafts in Africa through government ministries. It has a membership of 26 countries, among them Zimbabwe, which is the only one from Southern Africa. The rest of the members are mainly North, East and West African.
We are glad to be hosting a Codepa Conference in Bulawayo from June 21 to 23, 2017. The idea is that handicrafts are where you find our people’s creativity and expressions of African cultures. Small and medium enterprises have been neglected, and have not been organised or featured much. Yet, countries that have recognised them have improved GDPs. Ivory Coast, for instance, has 25 percent of its GDP coming from handicrafts, meaning most of their ruralfolk are part of major economic activity. We want to commend our women in Zimbabwe’s rural areas for keeping crafts going using fibre, stone, wood and clay.
Cities generally have contemporary arts. Handicrafts are no longer traditional as people use different materials like wire, wool, cotton and cloth. Cross-border traders are major exporters of handicrafts, and because there are no records, we are not sure exactly how much they are contributing to the GDP. We are now creating a database to keep track of all those details. It is our hope that the tourism and hospitality industry will grow so that demand for handicrafts increases.
We need to ensure our hospitality industry adopts and promotes our handicrafts instead of foreign ones. In 2016, I attended my first Codepa meeting in Ivory Coast, and was fortunate to be elected as the organisation’s First Vice-President. We are going to pull the Codepa presidency to Southern Africa for the first time, and intend to encourage the region to market crafts collectively. You also need to understand that crafting is voluntary and most people use their talents.
So, we want to encourage as many talented craftspeople as possible because we have now created markets and financing for them. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s US$15 million loan facility for cross-border traders is one example of the funding that is available. This facility will enable us to account for cross-border trade in terms of forex and employment-creation. Many cross-border traders will be able to trade abroad, taking as many crafts as possible along.
SMEs are contributing 70 percent of the GDP; up to 30 percent of that figure could be coming from crafts. That is not far-fetched, especially now that we will support them systematically to export. Codepa is the platform that will launch and advertise Zimbabwean handicrafts.
I’m, therefore, calling on all talented Zimbabweans to bring their handicrafts to this conference in Bulawayo as 10-15 handicraft promoters from across Africa will be represented there. We are very happy about the overwhelming response, too. Eighteen ministers have confirmed their attendance, and 157 exhibitors have registered. Crafters from Nepal, India and other countries will be there, so this conference is going to boost rural entrepreneurship through handicrafts. On the tax front, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority is working closely with the Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operatives Development Ministry.
They have gone all over the country to register and educate people on taxation. With this facility from the RBZ, it is going to be easy (for people to bank) as cross-border traders need to register with their association.
This will also enable them to make contributions. Zimra must have a tax bracket for different levels of SMEs. For instance, an SME that sells handicrafts is different from another selling something else as their values are different. Therefore, different brackets will incentivise SMEs, encouraging them to comply with tax laws. It is true that US$7 billion is circulating in our SMEs sector. That is still to be verified, but that is what the World Bank has said.
Recent World Bank surveys have shown that about 2,8 million Zimbabweans have started their own small businesses, and have about 2,9 million employees. I can safely say that more than half of our SMEs are now paying tax. That’s a big chunk, but more need to pay tax. The RBZ has been very good as they have started a collateral register for SMEs to register movable security like your furniture, stoves, refrigerators, cattle, goats and other livestock.
This was not the case before. So, anybody with some form of property will be able to secure money. SMEs are generating a lot of money, I might add. A small survey established that over US$1 million circulates in Mbare, Harare daily. If you take Mupedzanhamo, Mbare Musika and Siyaso (all in Mbare), US$1 million becomes realistic. Let me add that we have also registered some co-operatives in that area, and they are making almost US$3 million daily.
Just pay those places a visit and see how much money is being generated. Add those Mbare figures to what is being generated in Mufakose, Highfield, Chitungwiza, Makokoba or Kudzanayi then you will fully appreciate that there is major economic activity in the sector. I want to emphasise that tax compliance has improved because some banks have opened branches in some of these hubs like Mbare.
The problem, really, is not SMEs, but banks which are taking too much money from people (through charges). If you are a small or medium business owner, and banking causes you to lose, say, US$1 from the US$100 you would have banked, you won’t be inclined to bank freely.
Banks should have products that attract depositors. Once they do that, a lot of SMEs will bank, I tell you. A lot of them are not banking because banks take money from them without profit/interest. A businessperson wants profit. It’s a normal and practical business objective. The SMEs and Co-operatives Development Ministry is active in training SMEs, and sent 25 women to India for training last year.
When those women returned home, they shared expertise with others. You will discover that the bamboo at our National Handicrafts Centre in Harare has improved. The centre facilitates trade, with handicrafts from Buhera, Matopo, Binga and other areas now being exported to South Africa, The Netherlands and Germany.
It is important for people who are good at handicrafts to keep in touch with the centre for export and other opportunities.
Honourable Sithembiso Nyoni is the Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operatives Development. She was speaking to The Sunday Mail Reporter Tinashe Farawo in Harare last Wednesday
