The Sunday News
Roberta Katunga Senior Business Reporter
A MICROFINANCE institution, Construction Financial Services, has been launched in Bulawayo with the main objective of funding construction services as part of a response to Government efforts to meet target envisaged in its economic blue print — the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation.According to Zim Asset, housing is classified under the social services and poverty eradication cluster.
The document states that housing development is a key result area of Zim Asset, envisaging the construction of 125 000 housing units with an annual target of 25 000 until 2018.
In an interview with Sunday Business on Friday, the microfinance institution’s managing director Mr Aaron Radman said the company would be providing loans for construction as there was a gap in the market.
“A house is a very important asset that everyone should own but at least 95 percent of the market is un-catered for as people seek conventional businesses. Our target market is everyone whether formally or informally employed as long as they can prove adequate income generation to service the loan,” said Mr Radman.
Mr Radman said his company would fund the purchase of stands, construction as well as renovations.
Responding to questions on why the business was set up in Bulawayo, a city that is facing massive de-industrialisation and high unemployment, Mr Radman said if formal industries were closing down, it meant more people were surviving on informal businesses and that was still an opportunity to revive the city.
He said as a company they wanted to contribute to the revival of Bulawayo through employment creation and supporting local companies as all materials would be procured locally.
“To us Bulawayo still remains the best town to start a business in spite of the challenges that are being faced and our business entails a high demand for a lot of products like bricks and cement hence acquiring all these locally will help boost suppliers,” Mr Radman said.
According to CFS, the company would not only provide loans but had acquired land that was likely to produce 300 medium density stands to be serviced and sold under a credit scheme.
Mr Radman could, however, not provide details as to how much interest the loans would attract only saying that the interest on loans would be very competitive.
He said the first banking hall would be at Zimdef house in the CBD as plans to extend to all major activity centres were already in place.
Zimbabweans need houses given the increase in the population as shown by the last national census which showed a population of 12 973 808 in August 2012, which is a reflection of an average annual intercensal population growth of 1,1 percent.
