The Sunday News
THE Forestry Commission has shelved plans to venture into furniture manufacturing after failing to secure more than $1 million required to start the venture.
In an interview, the company’s deputy general manager, Mr Abedinico Marufu, said the organisation was sticking to its core business of providing timber to the furniture industry as efforts to raise funds to embark on furniture production had proved to be futile.
The organisation mooted the idea of embarking on furniture production four years ago as part of its diversification and value addition strategy.
“The Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation encourages us to do value addition. So it’s only a question of finding resources to buy specialised equipment because when doing furniture production you need specialised equipment which is expensive for us to acquire.
“We don’t have sufficient funds to go into that area so at the moment we are leaving it to other players in the industry to come to us and get the resources then they do further processing. We need over $1 million for initial investment, which will go towards establishing a factory and purchasing vehicles for carrying timber as well as procuring specialised equipment,” Mr Marufu said.
He said the organisation’s sawmill in Lupane District in Matabeleland North province was performing well although it was now aged.
“The sawmill is performing very well of course we have problems here and there because of the age of the machine. We bought the mobile sawmill for about $50 000 more than 10 years ago.
“It’s cutting of course there isn’t a lot of timber which is left there. The little that is left there is the one which we cut and give to the market. At the moment we produce about six to seven cubic metres per day cutting trees of over 31 centimetres in diameter,” Mr Marufu said.
The Forestry Commission is a parastatal under the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate.
It contributes to national socio-economic development through regulation and capacity enhancement in the utilisation and management of forest resources.
Its mandate is derived from the Forest Act (Chapter 19:05 as amended in 1999) and the Communal Lands Forest Produce Act (Chapter 20 of 1987), which provides for the Regulation of Forestry Sector; Forestry Extension, Management of gazetted forests; Forestry Research and Training; and Income Generation.
The mission behind its formation was to promote the sustainable management and development of the nation’s forest. The industry is based on research training, tree planting, extension and conservation and investment in forestry and commerce.
