FIFTEEN years after the infamous Operation Murambatsvina hit home industries in Harare, Silvanos Reza is still struggling to turn his life around.
VENERANDA LANGA
He operates from Gazaland home industries where hundreds of other informal traders found an open space to continue with their work . Black soot from burning tyres greeted members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which visited Glen View home industries and Gazaland in Highfield last week.
Most of the people working at the two industries like Reza were affected by Operation Murambatsvina in 2005 and had their little shops demolished. They narrated their ordeals at the hands of government during that black period.
Some blacksmiths from the Apostolic Faith sects could be seen making aluminium pots, while others were making scotch carts, wheelbarrows, vehicle parts like exhausts, tobacco baling machines, and all sorts of different household and machine tools.
“I am unemployed and I saw an opportunity to make a living through selling scrap metal,” Reza said.
“I operate on a small scale, and so I collect the scrap metal from people’s backyards in bins, but I get most of the scrap from company backyards.”
While Reza said he gets $20 per week from the sale of scrap metal, others like welder Jealous Chagonda said they got about $170 per month from backyard sales of vehicle exhausts and radiators, which he manufactures.
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“The challenges we experience are that, at times City Council officials pounce on us and they confiscate our goods. We are made to pay $20 fines for operating illegally,” Chagonda said.
They operate at an area where there is no water and ablution facilities.
The one toilet which once serviced hundreds of people at Gazaland is now disused. Traders said they had resorted to the bush system or asked people at nearby houses to assist with toilets.
Some of the workmen interviewed by the Members of Parliament said they used to work for big industries, which were closed down as the economic situation deteriorated.
“You closed companies and now there is no work and money. We are now struggling to get customers because there is no money.
“We do not even know that the Small-to-Medium Enterprises ministry exists because they have done nothing to assist us,” said an angry trader who manufactures window and door frames.
Kachuwa Chagumaira, who manufactures scotch carts, told the visiting legislators that they worked under very unhygienic conditions, with no toilets or water, and whenever it rained the place became very muddy and difficult to work from.
“I sell scotch carts for $1 500 each, but customers cannot pay full amounts because of the cash crisis.
“During the tobacco farming season, I can make as much as $30 per day,” Chagumaira said.
Next to him, a woman Blessing Shokora who was cooking sadza with a baby strapped on her back, said the economic hardship had forced her to join the men to provide catering for them.
“In a month I can make $60 profit,” Shokora said, adding it was better than nothing.
A scrap metal trader, Farai Tshuma said they had tried to get export permits for their products to no avail.
“Scrap metal is good business because the Chinese and other big steel makers have either closed or downsized,” he said.
“There is so much corruption in issuing out licences such that only big well-known people get them.
“We can afford the licences because they cost $500, but it is difficult to get them.”
The traders at Gazaland and Glen View face a shortage of workspace and lack of capital as banks do not recognise them.
They also face electricity problems and are forced to seek power from nearby shops at exorbitant rates of up to $80 per month.
Some traders become so desperate for a market that formal businesses actually order their finished products for a song and then resell at higher prices.
However, there are some successful traders at Gazaland who operate proper businesses at a complex built by Small and Medium Enterprises Development Cooperation (Smedco).
Chakanyuka Mutandi, a director with Ompeck Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd at Gazaland, runs a business which manufactures cockroach baits and other insecticides. His business has been successful and he has a staff complement of six people. He has even participated at trade fairs. Mutandi’s cockroach baits are
well-packaged and sold at formal markets.
He invents the insecticides himself, and now has a fleet of four vehicles and two motorbikes to market his product. Every month, the company produces 1 000 tubes of cockroach bait.
Another successful trader, Cosmas Mahere produces office furniture and, says he was lucky to get space to work from at the Smedco complex.
Mahere told the committee that he never got any loan from banks, the SMEs ministry or any institutions to run the business.
“Whatever we do, we use our own resources. We market the products door-to-door to companies,” Mahere said.
The Parliamentary committee’s chairperson Dorothy Mangami said there was great potential in the traders operating at Glen View and Gazaland if only they were formalised.
“They are doing a good job even if they have nothing to talk about in terms of infrastructure,” he said.
“They need electricity because they end up paying $80 for backyard connections, and instead of the money going to Zesa, it goes to pay unscrupulous people.
“There are no ablution facilities, and council must come up with infrastructure for them to operate from so that there is order.”
Mangami said cash shortages in the country were forcing the informal manufactures to sell their wares for a song.
“These traders are innovative and what they only need is skills development. They need training because most of the skills were acquired through training each other, but they need training so that they use modern technology,” she said.
She said some banks which had given traders loans were now struggling to locate them after the Glen View complex was gutted by fire last year.
“The committee will now ask the city council to appear before Parliament to explain what they are doing to improve the infrastructure at Glen View and Gazaland,” Mangami said.
“They should ensure there are proper structures like electricity and water.
“Last time council said they would come up with a plan, but they need to tell the committee why they are taking long to come up with it.”
Mangami said there was a serious health time bomb at Gazaland if people were left to work at a place with no ablution facilities and water.
