BULAWAYO, historically famed as the country’s industrial nerve centre, has experienced rapid de-industrialisation over many decades as Zimbabwe’s economy nosedived.
Once the country’s manufacturing hub, Zimbabwe’s second largest city experienced a sharp decline in industrial output and widespread job losses as companies ground to a halt. Scores of companies relocated to Harare at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown in 2008.
Companies which were spared from shutting operations rolled out massive retrenchment exercises to cut ballooning operational costs. Due to its proximity to South Africa, Zimbabwe’s largest trading partner, Bulawayo’s manufacturing sector significantly accounted for the country’s export receipts.
Apart from its rich cultural tradition, the mythical smoke that once churned from Bulawayo’s once vibrant industries has a permanent place in the city’s folklore.
Lovemore Majaivana, one of Zimbabwe’s foremost musicians sang about the riveting nostalgia that grips one with an understanding of Bulawayo’s industries in his iconic song: Umoya Wami. But all that is gone now.
As reported elsewhere in this edition, factory chimneys which used to spew clouds of industrial smoke have stopped running.
The industries, which are now ramshackle, are being converted into makeshift church buildings. A number of them have transformed into informal businesses. Broadly, this systematic decline is due to unavailability of investment capital, dwindling demand, untenable wages and an unfavourable tax environment.
Policy makers and industry leaders are alive to the severe headwinds buffeting Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector, particularly companies in Bulawayo.
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In September, Industry and Commerce minister Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu announced that the government would soon launch the Zimbabwe Industrial and Reconstruction Growth Plan, which will be tailored to revive Zimbabwe’s floundering factories.
The ambitious plan, which will run from the tail end of 2024 to 2025, seeks to rejuvenate industries that have been in a freefall for over 20 years. The new policy blueprint replaces the Zimbabwe Industrial Development Policy of 2019 to 2023, which was crafted to spur growth in the manufacturing and commercial sectors.
However, without a deliberate and coordinated plan to extend budgetary support to the comatose industries, the government’s plans will not yield the desired fruits.
At the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, former US President George Bush approved a US$17,4 billion bailout package to General Motors and Chrysler in a clear demonstration of the importance of the automobile industry in sustaining the economy.
That is the same support Bulawayo needs.
At that material time, as distressed automobile firms embarked on cost-cutting measures, Chrysler indicated that it was on the verge of cutting one million jobs if it did not receive support. Zimbabwe’s experiment to reinvigorate fragile industries through the Distressed Industries and Marginalised Areas Fund collapsed spectacularly.
But Bulawayo’s industries need urgent support.
