Former OK Zimbabwe CEO Willard Zireva says Zimbabwe’s unemployed youths must consider venturing into farming, saying “agriculture is the future for the country”.
Zireva (WZ) told Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN) on the show In Conversation with Trevor that he had retreated into farming, which was one of his passions.
He described agriculture as a “low hanging fruit for this country because agriculture has fast returns”.
Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: You are retired and this book that I have read a number of times says people above the age of 60, having been successful, at this stage of your life, this is a new beginning, how has been retirement life for you?
WZ: Retirement for me has been good.
I have been out of full-time employment for three and a half years, but I found myself busy throughout the period.
When I left, my initial intention was to set up a management consultancy company, which I thought there was scope and room for me to do exactly that and in the process, to assist other businesses and entrepreneurs.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
However, after a one-year break from being involved in anything which was demanding, I then started looking at setting up a consulting company and bought a building for my office, which is still there with furniture.
Then along the way came my eldest son saying dad, we need to do more at the farm.
I have a passion for farming — agriculture is the future for this country.
I have been in agriculture for the past 27 years.
I have learnt quite a bit and I’m looking at it as the low hanging fruit for this country because agriculture has fast returns.
TN: What do you think needs to be done for us to get back to what we used to be called, the breadbasket of southern Africa? WZ: I think what the government needs to do, I know they introduced the command agriculture scheme, Pfumvudza scheme, I don’t believe they are actually focused as they should be.
There are question marks about the transparency there.
To me, government should create an enabling environment where they provide security through the banks, they have a role, which is lending, and they should be given that.
They should say, go through the financial institutions.
At the moment, you go to the banks, the rates they are charging is mind-boggling, because you will never make money.
You say to yourself, why is government not seeing this opportunity because you can convert this country to become a massive exporter, generate foreign currency?
We should be aiming to increase the yield per hectare.
With input from government, using their trained Agritex officers — who in my view are being paid for nothing, and I think the last time I knew the numbers they were employing 4 000 people — it’s not going to cost government extra, but it will change the way this country achieves results. But the biggest thing is we have to harness water because without water we yield nothing.
TN: You are critical of the command agriculture?
WZ: I am not critical, but I am saying it could be done differently because the transparency is questionable.
There are people who get inputs, don’t use them, who don’t need them but because they are big chefs, they get them.
It’s getting it to be operating transparently and saying if I am giving support to this farmer, they should produce and pay back. TN: Would you advise young people to be involved in farming?
WZ: Absolutely. Women should be involved because I regard them to be reliable.
There is a high level of unemployment, they should join agriculture.
TN: Let’s rewind a bit, I want to take you back to your formative years. Where were you born, what shaped you, Willard Zireva?
WZ: I was born and grew up in Harare. I was a day scholar all my life through to university, in Mufakose.
The nearest school for us was Highfield; I went for four years of my secondary there and moved to Harare (Mbare) for Advanced Level. During those times, there were not too many options for blacks.
When I was doing my O’Levels, people started talking about teacher training and joining the police, I wasn’t interested. I was fortunate in a way.
I was good in accounting, and my teacher asked if I wanted to be a professional accountant.
She did her bit but because of the system, they couldn’t accommodate me.
I couldn’t be accommodated because you had to go through a firm of accountants to go there.
TN: You then went on to become a pioneer in the accounting field, went on to actually fight for the changes, which then allowed more black people to come. Talk to me about that.
WZ: Trevor, there were two blacks who passed the exam a year before us.
Our year, there were four of us and the next year there were six or eight, so we were an unknown quantity.
We decided that we were not going to allow it to happen.
We raised the issue and told them we would not continue to allow it to happen.
We said we got to start with 60% blacks, and it was accepted and from there, the firms could only take in people registered with the institute and had allowed more blacks to get in. In no time at all they had taken in more blacks than whites.
TN: Fast-forward, you spent a big chunk of your life — 33 years — at Delta and OK.
What sticks out for you in terms of your experiences?
WZ: I was employed on a Delta contract and they had a system where senior guys were employed on a Delta contract even if you worked on one of the units. I was employed on a Delta contract even without a position as such, but the group treasurer decided that he wanted to bring people like me. So it took a year for me to join Delta. I joined OK 1st of April in 1984 as finance director.
I had clear targets; my target was simply to get the controls in the company sorted out, reduce what is in retail, shrinkage or unexplained loss; he told me it was bad in the company and if I could reduce it to 1,5% of sales, he would move me to a different role. It was agreed before I joined. That time I was doing a Masters’ in Business Leadership.
I had issues at work because of the racial situation, I got to a stage where I wanted to leave, but the chairman influenced me not to leave. Three years after that, in 1990 I was appointed MD of the company, a challenging role, whites didn’t like it. I told myself I need to prove a point, that blacks can also achieve it.
I told one of the guys that my role was to assist them to achieve their goals, and it changed the way people looked at it. I had an open-door policy; I was prepared to listen to people’s views.
TN: One of the most important marketing platforms is the OK Grand Challenge, where did the thinking come from and what explains its success? WZ: OK was always into promotions and the reason why the promotions were fitted into our calendar was, we realised there was a dip in sales from April to July and this applies across all the retailers as well.
In 1987, we started having shortages in foreign currency and we sat down to find out what could join the three groups. We had to come up with a promotion that would join the three.
That’s the start of the genesis of the OK Grand Challenge.
We chose racing ahead of soccer and we launched it in 1988 and at that time, it had a three-year life cycle, it was to last three years and after that we had to find something else.
When we started, it became so popular that when we were planning to end it, we sat down and reviewed it; we actually concluded that it would be totally unacceptable to our partners to end it.
We said let’s run it for another three years, but we realised it was getting so powerful and we registered the brand, well, the rest is history. I don’t even know how the guys are going to stop it — it has become an acceptable culture now.
TN: Talk to me briefly about the lost decade and what you learnt from spending time in jail.
WZ: Trevor, the lost decade runs from early 2000 when the chaotic land redistribution exercise started and in the process, our currency basically collapsed and lost value.
Working became a non-
rewarding occasion and we had to go through that and pricing became difficult because rates were changing on a daily basis.
TN: The chaotic land acquisition, the price controls, you getting arrested for breaching the price control — what goes through your mind? WZ: What goes through my mind is a system which has no respect for human rights. You punish your citizens for doing nothing wrong.
I was clear in my mind that this is a passing phase, I had done nothing wrong.
