The Sunday News
Sharon Chimenya, Masvingo Correspondent
THE Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency is engaging local authorities in Masvingo province to raise awareness in coming up with bankable projects that sustain the local communities.
The investment agency which has the responsibility of the promotion and facilitation of both local and foreign investment in the country held a two day workshop in Masvingo last week with seven districts local authorities in the province.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, chief facilitator One Stop Investment Service Centre Mr Never Nyemudzo said they were carrying out outreach programmes to ensure that stakeholders align their processes to ZIDA.
“We are currently on an outreach programme to engage key stakeholders in terms of aligning them to the ZIDA Act and its processes in as far as identification, promotion of investment into the country are concerned.
“The issue is to take these people through the procedures, to say how do you identify an investment, how do you process it, at what point do you then engage ZIDA so that what we do becomes a properly assessed project that will come to fruition,” he said.
The agency has held a similar programme in Bulawayo. He said a number of the local authorities were facing challenges in attracting investment in their areas. “I can’t call it a challenge but it is lack of awareness. This programme is promoting that awareness to the local authorities. What we are saying is let’s look at our environment, what are the opportunities, how do we turn those opportunities into bankable projects.
“In Masvingo we have been talking about the major advantage that they have, the water bodies so we have been saying here are the water bodies how can we turn them into bankable projects that improve the livelihoods of the communities in all the seven districts,” he said.
Mr Nyemudzo said that ZIDA is specifically guided by the National Development Strategy 1 which identifies top priorities in the country.
