The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo Senior Business Reporter
A LOCAL empowerment group — the Concord for Corporate Development (CCD) will next month honour individuals who have made an immense contribution to the country’s economy as well as corporates that managed to weather the effects of the economic challenges over the years. CCD executive director Mr Ntokozo Msipa said in a bid to recognise those companies that have been contributing to economic development despite a challenging operating environment, the organisation had come up with the Zimbabwe Economic Heroes Awards.
The awards, which will see President Mugabe being honoured with a Grand Masters Award in appreciation of his unwavering role in ensuring the economic emancipation of youths and the people of Zimbabwe, would be held on 3 September at a venue to be announced.
CCD is an empowerment organisation that seeks to promote and assist business development. It has over the years been focused on assisting youth social based entrepreneurship.
“What prompted us to come up with these awards was solely the fact that we realised that even when our economy is threatening to take a nosedive there are individuals and corporates that are making an effort to make it tick.
“These corporate entities managed to employ and put in massive investments and as such we have decided to give them a token of appreciation for the little they have done, which is of course big in a way considering the impact it has made to the country’s economy,” Mr Msipa said.
Presenting the 2015 national budget statement, Finance and Economic Development Minister Cde Patrick Chinamasa said 878 firms were closed last year and 14,499 workers offloaded while 134 companies have closed shop this year.
Altogether Minister Chinamasa said 4,610 companies have collapsed since 2011, leaving 55,443 workers stranded.
The awards have been categorised into 20 covering the whole spectrum of the country’s economy.
“We are also going to honour individual ministers through which their paradigmatic works and influence managed to change the livelihoods of people with their contribution immensely contributing towards the turnaround of the country’s economy,” Mr Msipa said.
Also to be honoured are parastatals board chairpersons who have managed to run their entities in adherence to good corporate governance principle since the country attained independence in 1980.
Association for Business in Zimbabwe chief executive officer, Dr Lucky Mlilo said awarding companies that managed to weather the storm at the height of the economic meltdown was a good initiative.
He however, said there was need to ensure that the adjudicators take into consideration if those entities managed to pull through while adhering to proper business ethics.
“The awards are a good initiative but the criteria has to be scrutinised because some of the companies might have survived the economic downturn through practicing improper business ethics and principles and such companies are not worth honouring at all,” Dr Mlilo said.
