The Sunday Mail
Lincoln Towindo
WASHINGTON Mataranu has been around for what seems like an eternity. Following his unceremonious retrenchment after years of service at Deven Industries in the 1980s, Gazaland Home Industry has been his home since 1989.
A veteran of the home industry establishment, he remembers with fondness how Gazaland, which is located in Highfield, was once upon a time a serene place where the spirit of local entrepreneurship flourished.
It was a place where skilled and semi-skilled artisans alike could co-exist, united in their resolve to placate themselves from the ravages of unemployment and professional obscurity.
In those heady days, business flourished, unimpeded by a shrinking market, internecine power cuts, cut throat competition and perennially plummeting returns, among other ills.
Gazaland’s painful evolution
For Mataranu, his 26-year journey at Gazaland has been arduous and mired by seemingly endless upheavals.
Last week, he related to The Sunday Mail Business the home industry’s recent history – an engrossing tale defining local entrepreneurship spirit and stoicism.
He told a story of an establishment whose existence has been clouded in general commotion, largely a mirror reflection of the broad macro-economic conditions prevailing in the country.
Needless to say, he recalls the evolution of Gazaland through three distinct epochs.
First was the ESAP era of the early 1990s where Government’s economic structural adjustment programmes led to an unprecedented industrial bloodletting binge.
Thousands lost their jobs as industries from both the private and public sectors shed employees.
The consequence – an instigation of the upsurge in the number of operators at the home industry.
“Many workers lost their jobs during those days. Scores were left with no option but to join us within the informal sector,” he recollected.
With the increasing operators, the home industry grew in size, spreading its wings towards the peripheries of the Engineering area.
Entrepreneurs erected structures all over the place as they sought to expand their operations while new operators also entered the fray, adding to the strain that had already inflicted itself upon the home industry.
Fast forward to more than a decade later, 2005 to be precise, the scourge of Government’s city clean up programme – Operation Murambatsvina – again tore through the establishment. On the eve of the operation, Gazaland had reached a limit to its occupancy and it strode precariously on the brink of implosion, recalled Mataranu.
Following the operation, hundreds of illegal structures were razed.
The net effect of the programme left scores without structures to operate from.
In the wake of the clean-up operation, a brief lull followed.
But driven by a distinct survival instinct, many were to return in no time – this time subletting open spaces on the doorsteps of legally constructed structures.
Soon it was all systems go.
Business was flourishing again but sadly Gazaland could no longer spread its wings again.
Scotch carts, scaffolds, door and window frames, ploughs, fabricated steel works, household furniture, children play centres were among a wide array of finished products that seamlessly flowed off the conveyor belt that was Gazaland.
Motor mechanics, car breakers, vehicle spare parts salesman, food outlets, bars, night clubs and prostitutes even, were all recording brisk business.
Finally, Gazaland had returned to its former glory albeit in extraordinarily different circumstances.
The operators feared that authorities would not bat an eye lid before razing any other illegal structure if one dared to set up one.
But despite operating under cramped conditions, it was back to business as usual.
Having only one operational public toilet servicing the entire establishment had the unwitting sidebar of a potential health disaster, given the swell of numbers operating there.
The third and final period, Mataranu recalls, is the economic downturn of 2008.
“The little said about that period the better,” he said.
Business hit an all time low.
Many businesses crushed, scores joined the exodus towards the country’s borders as the country’s economy lingered close to implosion.
Furthermore, the cholera outbreak of that same year did not make operating under such cramped conditions a Sunday picnic.
“It was a disaster for many businesspeople,” he recalled.
Stabilisation of the economy in the next few years came as a godsend.
Business picked up, many operators returned.
Soon, Gazaland was a beehive yet again.
However, as the number of operators continued to grow, space continued to shrink.
The home industry could no longer grow.
It was stuck – unable to wriggle itself out and grow further.
Last week’s visit to the home industry by The Sunday Mail Business told tales of a former giant on the wane.
Business operators bemoaned the operating environment saying it was becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
They retold of problems ranging from day-long power cuts, dearth of working capital, a shortage of operating space, a shrinking market base compounded by increased competition among the businesses themselves and from foreign dealers.
Operators selling the same products
For 35-year-old Sydney Chimunda who sells old vehicle spare parts, the increasing competition from other dealers selling similar products has seen a sharp decline in his earnings.
He runs his business from an old work bench strategically located close to where cartels of individual motor mechanics operate.
He acquires his wares from rummaging through vehicle scrap yards and from car breakers. On a good day, he says he rakes in between US$15 and US$20, a far cry from the US$50 he used to cash in years gone by.
“The problem is that too many people are selling the very same things,” said Chimunda.
“As a result, the prices have been going down, leaving us with very little income.
“We also have no space to operate from and constantly have to fight running battles with owners of the buildings because we are operating in front of their shops.”
Business, however, does pick up during the tobacco marketing season and every year he looks forward to the coming in of the farmers. A stone throw away from Chimunda’s establishment lies sets of newly assembled commuter omnibus seats.
The seats assembled by a four-men team led by Tichaona Katsumba have been on display in the sweltering September heat for weeks now.
There is no sign that any one of the sets will be snapped up any time soon.
Katsumba reckons he might have to sell a set at a cut price in order to keep the business afloat.
A set normally sells for US$350 but Katsumba will have to take a massive knock in order for him to pay for overheads and operational costs.
While his entrepreneurial skills had witnessed him get this far after being retrenched from PG Industries four years ago, he believes he may have met his match. After losing his job he joined the trek to South Africa only to find truth in the adage that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
He returned home armed with an enterprising mind and what remained of his severance package.
He promptly purchased a grinder, a compressor and a welding machine – tools he would soon find indispensable in his newly found trade.
Soon his enterprise was off the ground and he would sell an average of two sets of seats every fortnight or three when the heavens permitted.
He had dreams of expanding into a more formal venture, a bigger one.
But the current operating environment has seen his dream wilt like Petunias under an unforgiving summer’s heat. Sales have gone down, electricity is erratic and competition is overwhelming.
His case personifies probably why the supposed growth of the Gazaland establishment remains in state of perennial stagnation.
“I am barely making enough to sustain what I have,” said Katsumba.
“I am barely making enough to cater for my family.”
“In this situation, the thought of expanding no longer crosses my mind.”
For many operators who are working here in the open, the looming rain season spells a bad omen.
Operating a welding machine during a downpour is an apparent hazard, meaning business will have to be summarily halted.
The thought of erecting temporary structures to sidestep the impending temporary closures will likely be met with instant justice from local authorities.
Dreaming of an organised environment
It is not all doom and gloom for all.
There are also various metal works that give sustenance to many entrepreneurs at Gazaland
Patmaz Engineering is one of the established steel fabrication enterprises at Gazaland.
Equipped with modern fabrication equipment, a 10-man strong workforce and 15 years experience in business, the establishment, owned by Tonderai Makova, is a major player at Gazaland.
With a customer base that includes a few major construction companies, Patmaz Engineering is in a state of preparedness to make the coveted leap into the formal sector fast lane.
But naturally, Makova’s challenges are world’s apart from those faced by his smaller cohabitants, Katsumba and Chimunda.
He dreams of a situation where operations at Gazaland are formalised and properly organised.
To that end, he says the businesses will be able to access loans from finance institutions.
He yearns of a situation where the national power utility recognises Gazaland as a strategic industrial hub.
“Zesa treats Gazaland as if it is not a strategic industrial site. There are times when industries just across Willowvale Road have power supply but we are cut off despite the fact that we are all in the same line of business.
“And we would be greatly appreciative if we could get space where we could properly organise ourselves and operate freely.
“Apart from that, there is need for capital injection so that we can grow as well.”
He called for the creation of a platform where entrepreneurs at Gazaland could network with industrial consumers and established retailers with the scope of establishing symbiotic relations.
Despite the differences in challenges they face as businesspeople, the entrepreneurs at the home industry remain united in their thirst for proper interventions from the authorities.
They argue that Gazaland’s role of assimilating retrenchees and school leavers who are unable to attain formal employment should prompt Government into instigating interventions to ensure its continued existence.
They advocated for preferential treatment from Zesa, allocation of space at a convenient operating environment, special rents, registration, access to markets and investors and better ablution facilities, among other things.
They pointed to the Glen View Home Industry Complex model as a probable solution to the problems bedevilling Gazaland.
In turn, they promised a flourishing industrial complex that will make a mark on the local industrial sector.
The budding and entrepreneurial spirit is quite evident at Gazaland.
It is a haven of small and medium enterprises that desperately lack the authorities’ hand-holding to nurture the businesses.
The reorganisation of this industrial settlement into a proper incubation for SMEs can arguably grow it into a launching pad for major companies. The current neglect has locked Gazaland in a time capsule where it is neither shrinking nor growing.
For this reason, most of the businesses have remained informal.
As years go by, only personalities change while businesses remain the same – small and hopeless.
