The Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mangaliso Ndlovu, has urged Zimbabwe’s business sector to move beyond complaints and focus on proposing concrete solutions to improve the country’s economic competitiveness.
Ndlovu made these remarks during the inaugural National Competitiveness Commission (NCC) Summit in Bulawayo on Wednesday, where he rebuked industry representatives for what he described as excessive lamentation over well-documented economic challenges.
The summit, themed “Building Sustainability Towards Enhanced Productivity and Competitiveness in Zimbabwe,” brought together industry stakeholders, including business leaders, economists, and government officials, to discuss challenges affecting the country’s industrial sector.
Representatives from the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC), and the CEO Africa Roundtable raised concerns over rising regulatory compliance costs, an over-bloated government, and a struggling private sector, which they argued were stifling Zimbabwe’s economic competitiveness.
Zimbabwe currently ranks 124th globally and 20th in Africa in industrial competitiveness.
The business community highlighted that macroeconomic instability, exchange rate volatility, pricing distortions, and a lack of coordination between monetary and fiscal policies continue to hinder economic growth and competitiveness.
However, Minister Ndlovu said the government was not at the summit merely to listen to grievances but to work towards solutions.
“The key outcome of this summit should be to consolidate and determine the key policy interventions needed to address these issues,” Ndlovu said.
“We are here as government to listen—not to listen to complaints and rantings. We are here to come up with a Zimbabwean story, a Zimbabwean solution to the challenges that we all acknowledge.”
He urged the business sector to recognise that these challenges have already been extensively documented.
“The challenges we are discussing here are well known. What we need to focus on is how to resolve them because they are holding back our progress as a country. They are suffocating our private sector,” he added.
Ndlovu noted that President Emmerson Mnangagwa had already directed government institutions to remove bureaucratic red tape to enhance Zimbabwe’s business environment.
“There has never been a clearer statement from the President. He has identified the problems, and now we must act,” he said.
One of the key concerns raised by business leaders was the high cost of regulatory compliance, which they argued is crippling the private sector.
Ndlovu acknowledged that certain government policies, such as reducing the fiscal burden of supporting state-owned enterprises, had led to unintended consequences.
“Between 2014 and 2017, we took policy measures to reduce the fiscal burden caused by supporting parastatals and state-owned enterprises. Over that period, many of these entities were weaned off Treasury support,” he explained.
“I hope they are not killing businesses, but they are certainly consuming resources elsewhere. This is an unintended consequence of what was initially a good move. The problem now is that many regulatory bodies require compliance payments, whether a business has traded or not.”
Ndlovu urged stakeholders to use the summit as a platform to analyse the impact of these regulatory frameworks and suggest ways to reform them.
The minister challenged industry players to take responsibility for Zimbabwe’s economic future.
“We must be masters of our destiny. We cannot spend two days complaining and then leave thinking we have accomplished something. We need to propose solutions as Zimbabweans,” he said.
“I was supposed to talk about policy initiatives, but I felt it was important to first set the tone correctly.”
Ndlovu expressed hope that the two-day summit would result in actionable policy recommendations.
“I look forward to robust discussions. As policymakers, we need to leave this summit empowered and clear on the way forward. The President has given us instructions, and we have no choice but to follow them,” he concluded.
Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Monica Mutsvangwa, also weighed in on the discussion, urging business leaders to engage with the government constructively rather than resorting to criticism.
“There is no ‘them’ and ‘us.’ That was in the First Republic. This is the Second Republic—your government. Make use of your government,” Mutsvangwa said.
She warned that merely complaining without engaging policymakers was counterproductive.
“You are doing yourselves a disservice if you just sit back and mourn without bringing your concerns to the table for discussion.”
Mutsvangwa acknowledged that regulatory costs were particularly burdensome for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and women-owned businesses.
“This has been clearly demonstrated by previous speakers. We have heard that 51 different regulatory licenses are required to operate a business. That is still too many,” she said.
She referred to President Mnangagwa’s recent address on reducing regulatory burdens, calling it the “elephant in the room” that must be addressed if the government is serious about formalizing businesses.
“If you make an SME pay US$8,000 just to formalise, you are forcing them back into the informal sector. SMEs in Zimbabwe are well-organized and have good structures. Given the right opportunities, they can achieve great things,” she said.
Mutsvangwa cited examples from Masvingo and Chiredzi, where local authorities provided SMEs with free land, allowing them to mobilise resources and build infrastructure.
“If you want to collect tax, you must provide a service. You can’t just chase after tax revenue without giving anything in return,” she said.