Giving back to the community close to Byo businessman’s heart
GIVING back to the community and assisting the underprivileged and disabled has been so close to the heart of local businessman and Zanu-PF Bulawayo Provincial Secretary for the Disabled and Disadvantaged Cde Tapfuma Zhou over the years.
Cde Zhou who is partially blind has recorded significant business success in the retail sector. Armed with an entrepreneurial vision as his driving force in business, he has managed to startup a number of supermarkets in the city with the current ones that he is running being Woza Woza in Emakhandeni and TZ Supermarket in Cowdray Park.
He did not start big. But like other businesspeople driven by the desire to succeed his vision in the retail sector dates back to 2006 when he started with tuck shops in Cowdray Park. Realising that his business needed him to be hands on, he had to quit his job as an accountant at Meikles Departmental Store.
“I was staying in Nketa then so when I visited Cowdray Park I saw opportunities for business there as l had a house there, so l turned it into a tuck shop. I realised that I was making a lot of money and I decided to resign from work. So, from there l then expanded and opened more tuck shops. l then registered a company called Bazium Investment. At one time I had about 16 retail outlets such as supermarkets, butcheries and bottle stores and had over 62 employees, but l had to reduce the number of outlets over time as people were now helping themselves from my investments. I was losing a lot of money.”
He said he had to remain with two outlets that were easy for him to manage and he is doing exceptionally well from them. Politically, Cde Zhou said he started doing politics fulltime from 2016 holding various positions in the provincial structures. Giving heed to the people’s call after they recognised his philanthropic work, in 2018, he contested for the Member of Parliament (MP) seat for Entumbane-Emakhandeni constituency.
“My getting into politics was inspired by the people’s call for me to represent them as they had noticed the work I was doing giving back to the community. There were programmes that we were doing as TZ Supermarket where we were ploughing back to the community. I contested in the Zanu-PF primary elections in 2018 and I won. I then went on to contest in the harmonised elections for the seat of MP for the constituency but I unfortunately lost but that never downed my political spirit as well as my philanthropic attitude. I felt I had gotten recognition,” he said.
He said he continued to assist and empower the disabled and underprivileged people in the community and with his current position in the party as provincial secretary for disabled and disadvantaged, he said there were a number of projects they were carrying out.
“We have done a lot of things and we created a database of those who with disabilities in the province. We have been pushing that children with disabilities go to school and we have rolled out programmes for those going through different challenges. We have a farming programme in Richmond where we are raising pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits. There are also two hectares of vegetables where we sell about 120 bundles of US$1 each per week, hence we are doing a mini business hub,” he added.
He said there were about eight hectares of land in Ntabazinduna where they wanted to do different projects especially for the disabled. Cde Zhou said they were in need of more assistance and they were lobbying Government to develop programmes that would assist the disabled and underprivileged so that they become less dependent and be more empowered as they target the realisation of Vision 2030 of an upper middle-income economy.
“Looking at areas such as health, we are proposing that Government should ensure that in every hospital there should be a person trained in sign language because there seems to be communication barriers between healthcare workers and those with disabilities.”
As a Zanu-PF shadow MP for EntumbaneEmakhandeni constituency, he said various projects were also being carried out to assist the communities.