The Sunday Mail
We need enforceable standards in the small man’s enclave to protect not only the health of consumers but because it is good to do the proper thing in the “new economy”. We need a new man who is not greedy and who doesn’t seek to unjustly profiteer.
The customer is king, a corporate cliche goes.
And queen too, I petition!
The sad reality in our republic is that the “small man” is apparently failing to make head or tail of this cardinal rule.
The customer is slave!
I wish dead all the “small men” who are enslaving customers.
Dead and buried!
We need to bring royalty back to the market.
Who is this “small man” I am talking about? Isn’t it taboo to wish ‘’someone’’ dead? Let’s get down to brass tacks!
Well, let’s begin with Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa who is on record saying:
“This is an economic revolution, and we need to learn how to deal with the small man. The old economy is dead.”
He reminded me of Gazi Ercel, Turkey’s central bank governor, who said the same about his country.
Gazi said: “The old economy is dead. There is no choice except to bury it.”
The difference, of course, is that Minister Chinamasa was talking about emancipating the small man of the small and medium scale enterprises.
Embracing the SMEs sector as the new normal, formalising the informal sector – that is.
The relentlessly shrinking formal sector has led to the proliferation of the informal sector, as more and more individuals continue to enrol with an enclave called the mushikashika economy.
The enclave is ballooning.
Take the new misikas that have of late sprouted on the roadsides of your neighbourhood, for instance. That’s the new man I am talking about. The Finscope Survey of 2012 has already told us that Zimbabwe’s small man has an estimated turnover of US$7,4 billion circulating within this informal enclave.
The same survey also established that there are 2, 8 million SME owners operating 3,5 million SMEs and employing 2,9 million people.
Here we see that the small man occupies an integral role in our economic theatre. The main actor! Not just a midget!
Against the above background, we need to effectively tame the small man and bring sanity to his mushikashika, if we are to optimise return from this strategic sector.
If Minister Chimamasa and Ercel can condemn the old economy to death, I would also like to wish dead an SMEs sector that is selfish and has taken the self-interest motive to the zenith of absurdity, while breaking all the best practices of doing business.
First, its the lack of honesty.
The street lingo is kubhosha.
Many customers are duped of their hard-earned money by vendors in return for fake products.
We have heard about gullible farmers who have bought fertiliser mixed with crushed white stones, counterfeit maize seed coloured with chalk powder; the list is endless.
This is a myopic and unsustainable way of doing business. The small man whose life I want spared is he who also knows that “dishonesty scales are an abomination”.
The customer service you also get from many small men is quite appalling. That the consumer is king is an old wives’ tale to them.
On a day like any other, vendors will be loudly chatting and giggling, as they parade their wares on their stalls.
It is not surprising that if you stop by to ask the prices of their products, you will be kept in suspense for a few minutes while they conclude their cheap gossip; only for them to eventually look at you and say: “Manga mati muri kuda chii zviya?”
This kind of SMEs sector must surely die.
We also need good hygiene in the business of the small man.
Have you ever seen the meat markets in the ghetto where one big dish will be loaded with disintegrating meat, with a thousand flies jealously guarding it?
Whether you like pork, beef, chicken, tsuro or mbudzi – it’s conveniently there in that dish.
In town, you often find vendors warehousing their vegetable and fruits in the cubicles of the dirty and stinking public toilets.
We need enforceable standards in the small man’s enclave to protect not only the health of consumers but because it is good to do the proper thing in the “new economy”.
We need a new man who is not greedy and who doesn’t seek to unjustly profiteer.
While, for instance, some producers have been reducing the prices of goods, the small man in most cases does not cut his prices.
Ironically, they always hasten to pass the entire cost to the consumer if producers increase their prices.
The taxman is also prejudiced of a lot of money by the small men who are reluctant to register their businesses.
We need to bring integrity and professionalism in the mushikashika economy.
Before I forget, my condolences on the untimely death of Allied Bank, ahead of the central bank’s monetary policy to be announced before January ends.
Please banks, just swallow the pride lump on your throats and merge if you can’t get the money to meet capitalisation thresholds.
Six banks failed to meet the minimum capital levels on the deadline of September 30, 2014.
As I say rest in peace to Allied, I would like to encourage other troubled banks to seriously consider the option of merging.
It’s better than dying!
And, oh, back to the small man.
The small man has lately been sceptical about bond coins, not accepting them due to tall stories being fabricated by doomsayers that it’ is the beginning of the introduction of the Zimdollar.
Little does the small man know that if the Zimdollar is introduced today, right now, in using the methodology of bond coins – where the value of every coin minted is matched with US dollars set aside – then we will no doubt have the strongest currency in Africa.
Sanity must prevail in the small man’s enclave.
Indeed the SMEs sector that is built on the foundation of bad principles must die.
