Africanews

ZIMBABWE

Women Tackle economic backwardness

Women in Africa have the unenviable task of being the family's providers when it comes to food. Yet, women don't have access to security with which they can get bank loans since they don't own land. To solve the problem, a group of Zimbabwean women have come up with a scheme under which they arrange their security through discount houses.

Weary of being perennially denied loans by commercial banks because of their inability to avail security, some women in Zimbabwe are contributing towards the establishment of discount houses from their own savings. The discount house will provide the much needed collateral security to women entrepreneurs when it becomes operational by the end of this year.
Says the brain-child of the project, Ms Nyasha Chikwinya, Harare North Constituency member of parliament in the capital, Harare: "We are already networking with established and aspiring businesswomen in Southern Africa and some West African countries with a view of assisting other women to establish similar projects and also initiating mutually beneficial trade agreements".

But what does this novel idea entail?

"Instead of going on our knees to commercial banks and the government begging for money to start business, we decided to begin by saving among ourselves and setting up a discount house that would provide the much needed collateral security," Ms Chikwinya, an ex - guerrilla during Zimbabwe's war of liberation that brought independence, from British and white minority rule, in 1980, said.

Commercial banks in Zimbabwe have stringent lending requirements that require collateral security which they could sell when a debtor fails to fulfill his or her loan repayment commitments. During the pre - independence era the law treated black women in Zimbabwe as minors and therefore could not independently own property. Black men could not own businesses in prime business areas. They could however open business in African residential areas, African purchase areas and rural areas. This scenario was a hierarchy of exploitation that sought to render blacks economically and thus politically under bondage of the colonialist masters and owners of capital.

The legal Age of Majority Act of 1982 put paid to these racial and gender discriminations and rendered anybody who was 18 and above a major who could enter into any business contract, own and dispense property individually, sue or be sued among a plethora of other legal rights that put women at par with male counterparts in all walks of life.

"We have departed from the traditional "Give us money syndrome" that has charaterised the indigenous business sector but we are now literally liberating and empowering ourselves by mobilizing housewives from all races, tribes and station in life to save and invest as shareholders in the envisaged discount house", said Ms Abi Magwenzi, one of the leading figures in the project, proprietor of an interior design centre and former lecturer at a local University.

Once a month, the interim executive committee headed by Ms Chikwinya invites old and new members to a meeting at Parliament Building where they make payments into their personal passbooks. The commercial Bank of Zimbabwe has been engaged to provide a user - friendly banking portfolio that will culminate in the establishment of the discount house this year.

Co-operation from Male Counterparts

Committees staffed by experts have been created from across the gender divides to assist in the professional aspects of the projects among owners of discount houses, commercial banks, media organisations and major business organisations. What has been amazing, according to the standing committee of the project, is the amount and quality of co-operation from their male counterparts in business and also from government bureaucrats. The government which has offered them the use of the parliament building in the capital, Harare has committed substantial constitutional and physical infrastructure in pursuit of its avowed struggle to emancipate women from all forms of bondage.

Says Nigel Chanakira, the Chief Executive of Kingdom securities Holidays limited, a discount house established last year: "You must commit a substantial amount of your dividends in the initial phase of your establishment as discount house to training your members business management skills. This will minimise the occurrences of defaulters when you are committed as guarantors".

However, despite the fact that this is a novel development and many women earn below the poverty datum's line of Z$1500 a month (US$ 167), they are contributing at least Z$250.00 (US$ 25.51), a month while others go as much as Z$5000 (US$ 510.20) a month safe in the knowledge that the money will earn them profit as dividends when their discount houses become operational by December this year.

"We've also arranged for some of our members to undergo training with our National export promotion organisation (ZIMTRADE) so that we have a tender that can chart the way forward for some export oriented entrepreneurs in horticulture, dairies and textile products. We want to have concerted trading arrangements with other women entrepreneurs in Africa", said Ms Chikwinya an importer/exporter of both artificial and natural flowers.

The MMD project was officially founded last January initially titled the Harare North Constituency Mullet Million Dollar Round Table project. However, it changed its name to the former after attaining a national paricipation in the past few months.

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