THE Insurance Council of Zimbabwe (ICZ) has engaged Harare’s Glen View area 8 Complex operators to help identify risk mitigation strategies to address the persistent challenges they face, such as recurrent fire outbreaks.
The area has been prone to perennial fire outbreaks, which have seen millions-worth property being destroyed.
ICZ feels that most people operating in the area have limited knowledge or awareness on risk identification and mitigation.
“We seek to appreciate the operating environment and the challenges faced that result in frequent fire outbreaks,” ICZ public read marketing manager Ringisai Batiya said during the tour of the complex.
“This will lead to working together with operators in coming up with and implementing risk mitigation solutions tailor-made for the area. Most people operating from the area have limited knowledge or awareness on risk identification and mitigation. This is also hindered by limited financial resources.”
Bayiya said ICZ sought to address their needs based on the nature of business operations they run.
Last year, a section of the mainly furniture manufacturing complex was gutted by fire, an occurrence that has haunted the area for many years. The causes of the fires have largely remained a mystery with traders and witnesses often giving different versions of events ranging from suspected electrical faults to randomly discarded lit cigarette butts.
Batiya said the presence of ICZ was not to promote insurance products, but to work together with the operators on risk management.
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“Implementation of tailor made risk identification and mitigation initiatives with the input of the operators will be crucial as it will address their needs based on the nature of business operations they run,” she noted.
ICZ head of operations Nicholas Sayi highlighted that the main aim of the tour was to build resilience and sustainability in the economy so that when people face problems insurers step in to ensure business continuity.
“It also facilitates specialisation so that people do business knowing there are those who will stand by them when accidents happen or before they happen. We are here because small to medium enterprises are contributing much to our economy,” he said.
“We are here to know exactly what you want and how we can help you. This is the first of the many visits after which we hope to design insurance products that will give you peace of mind. Concerning the fire problem, we commissioned a research on risk management which we are going to share. It speaks to how we can mitigate these risks.”
Speaking to NewsDay Business on the sidelines of the tour, operators said they did not know the causes of fire outbreaks.
“We have never understood it and it’s very difficult to extinguish the fires because of chemicals that we use. But my thinking is that we should have water systems that make it easier to extinguish the fire when they explode,” one operator suggested.
“It’s always August, September to October when these fires come up. Again there should be waste dumping mechanisms to mitigate these fires. You realise that we need standard shades with standard paving. This would make it easy to control these fires.”
