The Sunday News
Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
THE Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (ZIDA) Bill will be passed next month as Government strives to eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks that have been frustrating investors over the years, an official has said.
Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet Dr Washington Mbizvo, who chairs the ZIDA steering committee, said the Government was committed to guaranteeing investment safety as well as reducing business registration period from 90 days to a maximum of four days.
Dr Mbizvo, who is also the interim chairperson of the One-Stop Investment Services Centre, which is working under the auspices of ZIDA, said the idea was to have all processes done under one roof. He was speaking during the 6th CEO Africa Round Table conference held last week.
“The Bill is going through Parliament and I hope next month it will be passed. We are going to use this Act as a catalyst to generate economic growth and employment through industrialisation. The Bill will activate ZIDA, which will be under the Office of President and Cabinet monitoring and supervising all Government ministries and State enterprises,” said Dr Mbizvo.
He said an interim committee that was set up by Cabinet, after the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) was collapsed, has been working tirelessly to attract foreign and local investment.
“We are using the One-Stop Investment Centre as a precursor to ZIDA and once we have ZIDA as an Act, it will have a chief executive and chief operating officer and below them there will be the One-Stop Investment Centre,” said Dr Mbizvo.
He said the era of silo-approach where ZIA operated on its own under a separate ministry while some joint venture activities and private-public partnerships were under the Ministry of Finance and Special Economic Zones under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce was over. All investment activities would now be done under one roof.
“What we are doing now is to merge all these various pieces of legislative frameworks and put them under one particular piece of legislation called ZIDA, which will be responsible for promotion of investment in Zimbabwe and processing and licensing of investments under one roof,” added Dr Mbizvo.
He said the old system had numerous challenges in terms of the way business was being done.
ZIDA is based on the Rwandan approach following President Mnangagwa’s visit to that country hence removal of bureaucracy, which saw prospective investors taking up to 90 days being tossed from office to office in various ministries.
Dr Mbizvo said Government was trying to create a conducive environment for investors and significant work has been done on resuscitation of Cold Storage Company in Bulawayo whose investors were attracted through the one-stop shop concept.
The Government launched the One-Stop-Shop Investment Centre in December 2010 but it failed to operate optimally as some key departments did not send representatives. This resulted in continued delays regarding processing investor applications.
-@ncubeleon
