Business needs to work with Government

The elections are over, the new Government and the new city and town councils are in place, and businesses and business people now have to figure out how to deal with this and hos far they should become involved and how far they should combine and take joint action.

There is a lot of talk about a “disputed election”, but the results are not in dispute at least so far as the law is concerned.

A couple of losing National Assembly candidates have launched electoral petitions, both from Zanu PF, but to be honest do not appear to have presented any evidence that is likely to convince a High Court judge. In any case these are the only legal challenges.

As is quite common in too much of Africa, a losing Presidential candidate is going round saying he was robbed, but no one is really listening, at least no one who matters. Since 2000 we have even had this in the United States, but again no one outside his core constituency is listening.

So the results are the results. President Mnangagwa has a second term; his Zanu PF party can assemble a large and safe Parliamentary majority; he has appointed a Cabinet and they are in their offices working out what they must do.

At the same time almost all urban authorities have a respectable CCC majority, and most rural district councils have a safe Zanu PF majority. There is nothing much new.

To a very large extent many businesses people have written off both central and local government and have tried to be as independent as possible of both.

They pay their taxes, they pay their rates but do not expect very much in return.

They will also hire someone who knows the labour law so they can remain legal there, paying what they have to and making sure that contracts, both for temporary and permanent, conform to law.

Many go as far as drilling their own borehole or boreholes so they have a water supply, installing a diesel generator so they have a back-up power supply and in more recent times installing solar panels so they have at least a day-time power supply at much lower operating costs.

They fence or wall off their premises and hire their own security guards so they are secure.

While it may be prudent to be able to operate without much contact with the governing authorities outside paying taxes and rates, and without much contact with other businesses, this is far from ideal, adds to costs, and involves making those tax and rates payments without getting a lot of value in return.

While business competition is healthy, and cartel formation is illegal, there are lot of areas where some degree of co-operation can pay dividends, literal ones in the form of better profits from increased efficiency and virtual ones in the form of a better business environment.

For a start there are the services and infrastructure that everyone would like to have: a 24/7 power supply, a 24/7 water supply, decent roads, a railway service at least as good at what was around in the 1980s, decent public transport and housing so the workforce can get into work in finite time and in reasonable shape, efficient administration at both central and local government levels, import substitution and export promotion policies that make sense, and an exchange rate policy and access to foreign currency that works.

Crouching in self-erected silos is not going to provide this. The business community needs to be out there making it happen. And this requires a change in attitude and organisation.

There are bodies that represent the economic sectors: the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, the Retailers Association of Zimbabwe, the Chamber of Mines, an association for motor traders, around three farmer’s associations, and the bankers, which is the only one with universal membership. The rest are lucky if they have five percent of potential members on their books.

Most business organisations have moved a long way since their heyday and few have adapted to the major change in the make-up of their sectors, which now have a vastly larger number of businesses but with a huge majority being small companies, and that is without counting the informal sector of unregistered businesses.

The CZI now groups a few of the larger and older industrial companies, has given up the large headquarters and most of its professional staff and does very little, yet manufacturing industry is now a major plank of the Government’s economic drive.

Unless industrialists can organise and respond to invitations and initiatives there is a fair chance that a lot of policy is going to be made by civil servants and academic experts with political input from the relevant ministers.

We think that the businesses that make things should have a major say in industrial policy. Here, if CZI was fully representative, it could play a major role and when industrial policies are being created and drafted there would be a CZI representative in the room.

This might have to be someone, or a small group, seconded by a real manufacturer or manufacturers providing the practical input to at least balance what business school might be providing.

A reorganised and vastly expanded CZI could probably make some headway in discussions with ZESA and the energy ministry. For a start it could organise a combine to build solar power stations, possibly tapping some Government or ZESA money to add to its own.

It could also deal with the other side, local government, which is supposed to provide water supplies, process sewage and collect rubbish, and again some detailed involvement from those paying the business rates and licences could create policies that worked, rather than empty promises from mayors involved in internal politics and officials who appear to have just given up.

Admittedly CZI would need a new membership structure, probably direct membership for very big companies and sub-chamber membership and far lower fees for medium concerns and even suburban chambers for the small companies.

But with that something far closer to universal membership could be achieved with everyone directly or indirectly represented at the centre and working with the political leadership to get the sort of policies everyone wanted.

City and town sub-chambers could deal with local government councils, which have different problems from each other, making universal solutions difficult or impossible.

In one sense the results of an election are far less important than the need to be involved in the policy making and implementation.

The voters create who the business sectors deal with at government levels, but the actual policies that these sectors want are the same regardless of who the voters choose. Personal preferences can be expressed in a voting booth, business sector dealings are different.

The present national government is keen on more involvement from the private sector, something that many new investors have seen and are taking advantage of.

They talk to Government, negotiate with Government, far more than older established companies and it is not much use for the older concerns to complain about that.

They too need to be involved and preferably with a structure that makes sense and allows business to act effectively at the policy level, or at least have a large voice at that level.

It would make a lot more sense for the business sectors to take up the invitations from the Government and be involved. Of course they will not get everything they want. For a start one major function of Government is to take all views into account, and all necessary policies.

So labour law, for example, has to be fair to both employees and employers. Businesses cannot be allowed to destroy the environment in pursuit of short-term profits.

But it can be possible, and useful, to have input of practical business people on how these wider society goals can be met in ways that allow business to grow.

There are usually half a dozen solutions to each particular policy goal, and the best solution does need input from everyone.-ebusinessweekly