The Sunday News
Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Commercial Rabbit Breeders Association (ZICORBA) is undergoing a massive restructuring exercise to position itself to tackle current and future challenges confronting the country’s emerging cuniculture industry.
ZICORBA was launched in July 2020 to revive the country’s rabbit industry that in recent years has been dormant largely because most rabbit producers were mostly backyard farmers. However, the cuniculture industry got a new lease of life following the formation of ZICORBA that has started implementing a raft of strategies such as forging strategic alliances with other rabbit farmers’ associations in countries like Kenya, Mozambique, and Botswana to transform the local industry.
The association’s president, Mr Regis Nyamakanga, told Sunday News Business that the changes included the abolition of provincial executive roles and axing of non-performing full-time staff. Each of the ZICORBA chapters in all the country’s 10 provinces are presently run by seven-member executives. The changes, which will be implemented over the next three months, will result in the re-organisation of the top echelons of the two-year-old organisation, which is the collective voice of rabbit farmers in the country.
Mr Regis Nyamakanga
“Our national executive, which is the highest decision-making body in ZICORBA in-between the Annual General Meetings of members, met for a few days to introspect and come up with a raft of changes to reposition the organisation. We resolved to dissolve our provincial executives to make the organisation nimbler and agile in dealing with an array of issues facing cuniculture industry in Zimbabwe. In addition, some non-performing provincial coordinators will be sacked,” he said.
Mr Nyamakanga said at national level, the national executive would be re-organised and mandates for all members of the top leadership redrafted to include performance targets and accountability statements as well as tough sanctions for non-performers.
“Once the constitution is approved, elections will be held to choose a new leadership of the organisation and new provincial coordinators will be appointed to run the affairs of the 10 ZICORBA chapters in all the country’s provinces,” he said.
Meanwhile, the local rabbit industry is anticipated to generate over US$2,5 million from domestic sales in the next five years in sync with the aspirations of the Livestock Growth Plan. The Livestock Growth Plan is part of the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy launched by the Government with a view of growing the livestock sector to a US$1,9 billion economy by year 2025.
