Business Chat with Victor Madzinga

I had walked a couple of metres on, then something attracted my gaze. I got curious. After a little hesitation I backtracked and walked over towards the bespectacled middle-aged man seated in a reed garden chair in the shade of a giant jacaranda tree along the Harare-Mutare highway.

He was weaving something around some wrought wire frames using murara (leaves of the ilala palm) – a novel lamp shade.

Chenjerai Bopera was born 46 years ago in Mushaninga Village of Murehwa. He attended Nyahuni SDA Mission (then Makunde) and later Hokodzi Primary Schools up to 1990.

After his primary school he came to live with his father who had just retired in the Cherima section of Dombtombo, Marondera. In between some temporary jobs in the industrial site, he would join his father in making handicrafts such as door mats from old car tyres. They would sell these alongside other items in the location.

In time he moved on to Charlesdale along the Harare-Mutare highway, where he joined master craftsmen like Maposa from Chipinge. Here, they would make and sell to motorists a wide assortment of handiwork such as rubber and sisal mats. This time around the innovation had gone a gear higher as they would also use dry banana leaves and dry maize husks to make various types of mats and baskets.

Bopera says they would receive large orders for their handicrafts from cross-border women who would in turn sell these to customers in neighbouring countries such as Botswana. Business was very brisk then.

As fate would have it, Operation Murambatsvina (Clean-up) came along in 2006 and they were forced away from their base across Charlesdale Service Station. They moved up the road, closer to town. No sooner had they settled than they had to give way to the construction of the ZESA pension fund megawatt complex. The displacement saw them sojourn to their current location, just across the municipality offices for the Department of Works.

The trade plied by the roadside weavers is both respectable and profitable. The craft entails a great deal of innovativeness. There is a lot of creative re-cycling taking place here: Dry banana leaves, maize husks, old car tyres and thin plastic strips used to strap together blocks of bricks ingeniously transformed into beautiful mats, baskets, handbags, lampshades and washing baskets.

A 3 x 2, 5 metre multi-coloured mat weaved from plastic strips sells for a cool 50 USD, while fanciful lampshades and washing baskets made from straw or plastic strips easily go for 20 USD apiece. The big buyers are white motorists-although locals come by to buy a mat or washing basket. Of late, lodges -which have recently sprung up in the area – occasionally place orders for customised mats, wall hangings and lampshades.

Bopera bemoans the lack of decent workspace for the weavers. “The sector holds a huge potential for growth only if we could have proper premises. But it looks our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. We have made numerous representations to the municipality to construct for us decent infrastructure like a workshop, storerooms and a curio shop from which we can sell our wares. As we speak, we have nowhere to keep our stuff overnight. We stop work whenever it rains. We would also need ablution facilities and parking space for our customers.”

Would they afford the rentals for a state-of-the-art craft centre? “Though we don’t make a lot of money, but we would very gladly pay for such a good thing,” Bopera points out.

A colleague -Zuze Kaunje – chimes in: “If possible such workspace should be along the highway for proximity to our motoring customers.  The so-called factory shells which were built by Operation Garikayi/Hlalani kuhle, were not appropriate both in terms of design and location. ”

Sixty-nine-year-old Kaunje is a former employee of Eagle Tanning, a firm just outside the town, which used to make exquisite leather products – mainly for the export market. After he got retrenched some years ago, it was only natural for him to continue on the same trajectory, but on his own. Kaunje followed his instincts.

Talking of “artistic instinct”, it would be best if the “artistically inclined” were not left to their own devices. Vocational training centres could incorporate training courses in their curriculum for the benefit of such people: Modules in Fine Arts and Business Management (with Record Keeping and Basic Marketing components).

“You almost failed to notice us as you were walking along,” chuckles Bopera.

“We need decent workspaces, where we can put up large colourful billboards for people to see us easily,” he continues.

The predicament in which craftsmen find themselves is not peculiar to Marondera. It is virtually the same in all towns across the country. However, only very few local authorities have acknowledged this problem as their own as well. Gwanda municipality is one such local authority.

They created and dedicated an office – the Economic Development Office (EDO) – to earnestly look into the concerns and welfare of the small business. Local authorities and all stakeholders for that matter need to be proactive in their engagement with the small businesses. They should not wait to react to catastrophes.

Through the EDO Gwanda municipality has toned down its attitude from that of being punitive to one of nurturing. This stance is borne out of the realisation that the small business, through sheer numbers, is more of an ally than an adversary when it comes to growing the local economy.

From time to time this office, in liaison with like-minded government agencies such as the Department of Small and Medium Enterprises Development in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Community and Small and Medium Enterprises Development, facilitates capacity building workshops for the small businesses – including vegetable vendors.

Such training would mark a critical step towards the much touted formalisation of the small and medium enterprises (SME’s) sector. A formalised SME sector is better placed to provide better quality goods and services, better employment opportunities and greater contribution to the fiscus by way of taxes.

The magnitude of the anarchy and non-compliance which currently characterise the small business sector countrywide only lays bare the extent to which the small business has suffered neglect at the hands of local authorities and other responsible government agencies.

Hopefully, with greater attention and support from local authorities and other government departments, the small enterprises – including the roadside weavers – will have their economic dignity restored and enabled to take their rightful place in building the national economy.