STAFF WRITER
The Zimbabwe Chamber of Small & Medium Enterprises (ZCSME), which serves as the umbrella body of MSMEs Business Associations in Zimbabwe, has partnered with Alinial Chartered Accountants in order to accelerate the implementation of MSMEs Policy 2020-2024.
This initiative aims to ensure the early realisation of Vision 2030.
Alinial Chartered Accountants is a diversified group which is involved in Advisory services, Investments Promotion, Commodity Broking and General trading & Supply .
It is anticipated that more than 4.5 million micro small and medium enterprises will benefit from the collaborative agreement.
Under the agreement, MSMEs are expected to have access to affordable, decent and modernized workspace as well as access to affordable loans, and technical advisory towards initiation of formalization into established formal sustainable entities.
This will directly translates into an MSMEs Sector that is self-driven and high magnitude to address national concerns related to the need for safe cities and markets.
Under the agreement, Alinial is expected to broaden the scope of work needed in order to accomplish the MSMEs Policy objectives ahead of Vision 2030.
According to Mr. Samuel Makuvire, Managing Director of Alinial Chattered Accountants, a pilot project has already been carried out in the Chiredzi district, where 220 MSMEs have benefited from reasonably priced and modernized work premises.
He said the project will be expanded to other districts across the country.
“Our partnership has already seen the development and allocation of decent, affordable and modernized workspace to than 220 MSMEs in Chiredzi district,” Makuvire said.
He added: “This is expected to be replicated across all the districts in the country. We would like to acknowledge the Government and Local Authorities across the country for availing all the necessary support including land. The beneficiaries of these workspaces will be put under rigorous incubation programs that will see them being transformed from being small businesses to medium and or large businesses by 2028.”
This development comes at a time when, according to a 2021 MSMEs study, approximately 70% of the 4.1 million MSMEs’ owners reported that they had not received any form of training on how to manage their businesses.
Additionally, it’s estimated that 56% of the 4.1 million MSMEs had their primary source of funding was “savings. Less than 1% of businesses received funding from MSMEs associations, and 1.3% were sponsored by both banks and microfinance organizations.
Furthermore, the place of business is considered to be a key factor contributing towards MSMEs ability to compete in the production of goods and services”.
About 57% said their workspace was unsuitable and indecent, which had an adverse effect on attracting customers.
Overall, 42.3% of MSMEs maintained informal records for personal use, meaning 54.3% of the MSMEs did not maintain accounting records for their commercial activities. Although they lacked a full set of accounts up to a balance sheet, about 16% of MSMEs kept official records for their operations.
Of the 4.1 million businesses, over 2,9 million operated without any kind of registration, and 40.9 percent of those businesses were run by individuals who claimed not to know.
“When you read the 2021 survey by Finscope , you will appreciate what we intent to achieve as a local private sector player. With the chamber we are in total agreement that the issues and gaps in that report are a significant threat to the attainment of the National Vision of becoming an Upper Middle Income Economy earlier than the scheduled 2030” Makuvire said.
