‘Zim situation always dynamic’

THE Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe (Emcoz) held its congress in Victoria Falls last week where the issue of social dialogue came under the spotlight. Deputy business editor Kudzai Kuwaza (KK) caught up with Emcoz president Demos Mbauya (DM, pictured) to discuss a number of issues which include his mandate after being re-elected, social dialogue and economic challenges bedevilling the country. Below are excerpts:

KK: As you of your term objectives?

DM: As you would recall when we got into our first term, our focus was on rebranding Emcoz under the theme “Adjust and Adapt” and the key area of focus for us was social dialogue. We identified social dialogue through the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) as a key enabler for engagement for business, labour and government not only to resolve socioeconomic challenges but also to have a medium-to-longterm view of how we should do things so that we achieve the objective of the National Development Strategy 1 which is to have an upper-middle-class economy by 2030. As we go into the next term we are going to continue on social dialogue among social partners.

KK: What progress has been made on the TNF platform?

DM: We have started getting some traction at TNF. We would like the momentum to continue and have discipline among social partners particularly the government. When the government has major policy interventions, they must come to the TNF so that whatever policy interventions are put in place to deal with socio-economic issues, there is ownership by all social partners, there is also accountability and there is consensus building. I think that is how we should build our country going forward.

KK: You have held your annual congress. What were the takeaways from it?

DM: I am happy to say that our congress was addressed by other social partners. We had senior government officials, we had the presidents of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions and captains of industry. The major takeaway was that there is a genuine desire among social partners to continue driving social dialogue and that was the main theme of our congress which was to unlock the social dialogue process. The key takeaway is that we must continue social dialogue. We must continue engaging as social partners. We also had an opportunity to talk about how industry can partner with universities to tap into the innovations that are taking place. As you know most universities have innovation hubs. There are a lot of projects that can be commercialised and drive industrial innovation and productivity. That was a key takeaway as well. The other key takeaway was that as business membership organisations, we need to continue working together. I am talking about the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Bankers Association of Zimbabwe and Chamber of Mines, among others. We think that we need to have one voice and amplify it as we engage with other partners through the TNF.

KK: Government has put in place several policy measures to rein in exchange rate instability and bring about economic stability such as the introduction of gold coins and reviewing the cost of government contracts. In your view how effective are these measures?

DM: Let us go back to see what was causing currency volatility and what has been driving the depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar against the US dollar. Based on research from our economists, where we are with inflation is largely because of growth in money supply and one of the key areas that was driving money supply was government contracts around infrastructure

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