Harare, Zimbabwe ( News of the South)-The Federation Master Printers of Zimbabwe has called for consistency in government’s formulation of policies, not just emergency protectionist interventions, which will restore the printing industry’s competitive edge against its regional competitors.
Speaking at a Packaging Forum the Chairman of FMPZ Ben Ntini said local printers needed to plan for the future but they were failing to do so now for varied reasons chief of which is the uncertainty in government’s policy stances.
Ntini accused the ZANU PF government of being flippant in its execution of duty resulting in a business environment that has few guarantees for a sector that needs $40 million investment to bring it to the level of its regional counterparts.
He said the private sector had been sleeping at the wheel by keeping silent whilst government ran things aground and waiting for ordinary citizens to stand up for them.
“The economy has not been run properly in our country but business has waited silently and waited for some man in Mbare to speak for them. Protection works only for a short time but there is need for structural changes, look at the fundamentals that will result in the industry growing”.
“How do you have a Minister revising an entire fiscal policy for a country and expect business to grow when there is so much uncertainty”, he said.
Turning to bond notes Ntini said the Damocles shadow of the new currency has created more challenges for the industry.
“Currently the market is afraid to order due to the issue of coming bond notes and the uncertainty they have, and when it orders it’s afraid to pay using US dollars because they is no guarantee again that one will be able to get that currency back after doing business. When it finally agrees to pay the payments actually take forever to come in”.
The FMPZ leader also accused ZIMRA of being partly to blame for the informalisation of the country’s economy as many printing companies were operating under the radar due as a way of avoiding excessive taxation.
“ZIMRA should understand that the economy has been informalised and it has done even more to increase the momentum of such as companies are hiding away from paying the excessive taxes”.
“At our last count they are about 28 operating printing companies with only about 7 hat categorized as medium level”, he said.
The recent of the protectionist interventions by government, SI 64 which restricts random importation of some goods, has however brought about some positive changes for the printers in the interim.
Ntini said demand had gone up with capacity utilization now around 50-60%, though there is need for companies to invest in scalable technology that will remain conducive and applicable for any kind of consumer demand.
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