By Malvern Mkudu
New Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko has been criticised for his comments about vendors last week. He was reported to have made disparaging remarks about able bodied men who are operating businesses as vendors.
His remarks have been received with mixed feelings and described as insensitive to the plight of jobless Zimbabweans who have been forced into this situation by his government in the first place. For many it showed a man who is not in sync with the economic realities on the ground
With an estimated 7 billion dollars circulating in the informal sector, 2, 5 million businesses are believed to be operating in this sector with the majority of these being these vendors. It is estimated that more than 800000 people are employed in the informal sector.
The ruling party brags that unemployment is only at 5% now because of its empowerment policies that have created vendors and other dealers dotted around the city. But VP Mphoko’s comments appear to pour cold water on the ruling party’s claims of success by looking down upon these vendors.
The ZIMASSET economic blue print which is running under the theme indigenise, empower, employ has been used as the basis for setting up vending initiatives by ZANU OF activists around the country. Even the First Lady Grace Mugabe has urged the police and other authorities not to harass vendors who are going about their daily business.
But these comments show that the ruling party recognises the failures of its empowerment policies which have resulted in the demise of the manufacturing sector. Most manufacturing companies in the country have either shut down or retrenched resulting in employees finding solace in vending in the informal sector. The manufacturing sector was second only to the wholesale and retail sector in terms of retrenchments last year.
The manufacturing sector has struggled due to power shortages, high labour and raw materials costs and high capitalisation costs. These challenges have been brought about by ruinous economic policies pursued by VP Mphoko’s party over the last years although the ruling party has blamed much of this on what it calls illegal sanctions.
It is interesting that the Vice President unwittingly raises issues of under-employment and unproductivity in the country. More than 6000 thousand graduates who came out of tertiary learning institutions after spending millions of taxpayers’ funds to educate them are entering the economy as vendors and tuck shop owners.
Highly skilled young Zimbabweans such as engineers and pilots are failing to find jobs as the economy has come to a grinding halt.
The economy has been transformed into largely a consuming economy as Zimbabweans are currently consuming more than they are producing. With imports standing at $2, 6 billion while exports are at $1 billion according the latest ZimStats figures there is no hope of fortunes turning around soon.
These large import figures are as a result of South African imports entering Zimbabwean borders and finding their way onto supermarket shelves. Until recently VP Mphoko was Chairman of Choppies, a retail franchise that basically peddles foreign products in this country. It is the case of the pot calling the kettle black as there is no much enterprise in importing groceries and flooding them on the Zimbabwean market.
But this is the problem with policy makers who also double up as business operators. The Vice President has seen how these vendors selling commodities at street corners are making business impossible for registered retailers who have to pay taxes and pay for other licences. He is hinting of the need to exterminate this threat or competition.
The reality is ZANU PF’s policies have turned the country into a nation of vendors at varying scales. We have become a consumptive lot who not very productive. What is worse is that the majority of the citizens are underemployed and their skills under-utilised
